


Need You Now

by tomlintops



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Depressed Louis, Domestic Violence, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Physical Abuse, Protective Harry, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Defense, Self-Harm, Smut, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlintops/pseuds/tomlintops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>au: harry moves to a new school and meets louis. louis isn't your typical high school student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Little does Harry Styles know today is the start of a new beginning for him. Today's the day that he starts at his new school - Doncaster Prep. His mum had met a guy names Robin, and they had dated for a bit, but Harry didn't think that their relationship was anything serious. He thought that it would be like all of the other ones; date for a couple of months and then break up. Soon, about five months had passed, then a year. A year turned into two years - and before Harry knew it, he was standing behind his soon-to-be stepdad at the altar as his best man. 

It's not that Harry doesn't like Robin - that's far from the truth. He makes his mother happy, and that's all that Harry wants. It's that Harry doesn't like the fact that his mum remarrying has led to their whole family having to move to a completely different city almost one hundred miles away. 

Harry doesn't do well with change. Especially when that change means having to move to a new school. He isn't looking forward to being referred to as "the new kid". He isn't looking forward to being the talk of the whole school. And he's most definitely not looking forward to meeting new people. Harry's always been horrible at making friends - he isn't exactly a social butterfly. He's always been known as the awkward kid with only a couple of friend. He'd had a friend back in Cheshire that he'd known for as long as he can remember - they were the best of friends - and Harry hates that he had to leave him.

Harry'd begged his mum not to make him move - the let him stay in Holmes Chapel and stay with a friend until he finished his last year of high school. Moving away from his hometown was not on his list of accomplishments for his future. But, of course, his mum didn't care about his opinion - not as long as Robin was involved. 

"Harry!" He hears his mum call from downstairs. 

"What?" He calls back in response.

"You need to get up - you're going to be late for your first day of school," She states the obvious, as if Harry's not aware. 

As the boy sits slowly up in his bed, he's dreading the day to come. He runs his hands down his face in exhaustion - tired from all of the moving that him and his family had been doing over the past couple of days. When he finally has enough energy to stand up, he gets out of bed and walks over to his wardrobe which is only halfway filled with clothes - the other half still in one box of the many scattered around his room. He doesn't bother taking a shower - seeing as he's already late for school. He quickly pulls on a pair of black skinny jeans and a black jumper that reads **_TEENAGE RUNAWAY_** on the front. He snatches up a grey beanie from one of the unpacked boxes and pulls it onto his head over his mess of brown curls. He surveys his room for his backpack that he knows is still in one of the many boxes in his room - just like everything else. Sure enough, he finds it sitting in a box in the middle of his room. He slings it over his shoulder and finally heads downstairs to face the day. 

Harry's getting ready to walk out of the door when his mum stops him in front of the doorway.

"Aren't you going to grab some breakfast before you leave?" She asks her son.

"No, I'm fine mum," He insists, trying again to make an escape through the front door. 

He's stopped by her disapproving glare. "Harry, you need to eat something."

"I'll just grab something from the school cafeteria.

“I’ll just grab something from the school cafeteria,” He says, turning back around and walking out of the door. He hears his mum call out something about him having a good day at school before he slams the door behind him.

“That’s highly unlikely,” He mutters under his breath – talking to no one but himself and the air around him.

Ten minutes pass and Harry’s already at the school – Robin buying a house within short walking distance so he and Anne don’t have to worry about driving Harry to and from school. Harry feels like literally the only high school senior without a car or a driver’s license – what with having parents that believe a car isn’t a necessity in life.

Doncaster Prep is a big school, from what Harry can tell from the outside. Being curious, he’d done some research to see what the school was all about. Harry’d learned that the school has three stories – the first floor holding freshmen and sophomores, along with the library; the second floor the juniors and the third floor the seniors. The gymnasium and the cafeteria are both housed in different, separate buildings. The oversized stadium is situated behind the school.

Harry’d also learned about the yearly tuition of $10,000 to attend Doncaster Prep. He’d tried to convince his mum, with hopes of staying in his current school, that the cost of this new school was exorbitant, more so than the school that he was attending in Holmes Chapel. His mum and Robin had insisted that it wasn’t too much more than they were already paying.

As Harry moves nearer to the school, he can make out a bunch of people scattered around the huge front lawn – all standing in their distinct groups of friends – talking away. The majority of the girls are wearing nice button-up blouses and knee length skirts. Most of the guys are wearing polo t-shirts with tan chinos. Harry looks down at his own clothes – there isn’t a uniform requirement at this school, nor was there a specific dress code – and can already tell he’s underdressed.

Harry awkwardly walks up to a group of girls. He lightly taps one of them on the shoulder, trying not to startle her.

She turns around and smiles at the boy in front of her. The girl’s wavy brown hair is parted down the middle and reaches to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She has dark brown eyes, and a warm, enthusiastic smile planted on her face. “Hi,” She says.

“Hi, erm – I’m new here. Could you tell me where the main office is?” Harry asks awkwardly. He can feel the rest of the girl’s friends’ eyes on him.

She takes the opportunity to show the new curly headed kid around as soon as he prompts the question. She turns around to quickly say goodbye to all of her friends – them giving their goodbyes in return – and turns back around to face Harry, grabbing his wrist and dragging him towards the entrance of the school.

The girl – whose name Harry still doesn’t know – begins rambling on about something, but he tunes her out as he takes in the inside of the expensive school that he’s going to be attending for the next year, 

As he looks around curiously, he sees several students staring at him as he’s being pulled around by the overenthusiastic brunette girl, but doesn’t pay any attention to them.

Before he knows it the high pitched voice in his ear has stopped and the two of them are standing in front of the double doors leading into the main office.

“Well, here you are,” The girl says, smiling at him while gesturing to the doors.

Harry gives her a quiet thank you in return and turns to place his hand on the brass doorknob of one of the doors. Before he can turn the knob to enter the office, there’s a hand clasping his other one – stopping him in his tracks. He turns around and faces her with a questioning look on his face.

“I didn’t catch your name,” She says almost shyly.

Harry clears his throat. “It’s Harry. Harry Styles.”

Her smile widens as she’s told the boy’s name. “Well, Harry, my name’s Eleanor Calder. It was nice meeting you,” She says sweetly.

“You, too,” He returns with a small smile. He averts his gaze from her intense stare into his bright green eyes. He glances down at their still clasped hands and awkwardly clears his throat.

“Oh!” She exclaims, as if she’s forgotten they’re holding hands. She releases his hand and holds a slender finger up, telling him to wait. She starts rummaging through her bag that’s slung over her shoulder and finds a piece of paper and a black ink pen. She quickly scribbles something down onto the piece of paper and holds it out to Harry. “Before I leave you to your business, erm, here –here’s my number. Maybe text me later?” She asks shyly, her cheeks turning a dark shade of pink.

Harry chuckles nervously, scratching the back of his neck, and plucks the piece of paper, that does indeed have her phone number and name scrawled onto it, from her dainty hands . “Yeah, I –okay. Sure.”

Her face lights up at his agreement and she flashes him a toothy grin. “Okay,” She giggles. “Bye, Harry. Have a good day,” She says as she turns on her heel and starts walking back the way she and Harry had come. Harry doesn’t miss the excited little dance she does on her way back when she thinks that nobody's paying attention.

Harry shakes his head in amusement and turns to enter the main office. He walks up to the front desk where he assumes he’s to get his schedule, and lightly knocks on the counter to get the receptionist’s attention.

She looks up from where she’s quickly typing something on the computer and gives him a warm smile. “How may I help you, dear?” She asks sweetly.

“I’m, erm –I’m new here. I need to get my schedule,” The boy states.

“Name, honey?”

“Harry Styles.”

She looks back to her computer and begins typing again, muttering under her breath. “Styles. Styles. Styles. Ah, here we are. Harold Styles,” She confirms. “I’ll just print this out for you real quick, and I’ll send you on your way.”

She turns around in her office chair and leans towards the printer, grabbing Harry’s freshly printed schedule. She hands him the paper – still warm from the printer. “Here you go, Harry. Have a nice day.” The smile from when he first approached her is still firmly planted on her face.

“Thank you,” He smiles back at her, turning and walking out of the office. The hallways are now empty – Harry assumes that the class bell had rung while he was retrieving his schedule.

Harry starts walking to his class located on the third floor of the school, the senior wing. He begins his ascent up the flights of stairs, which takes him longer than it should, observing every wall that he passes on his climb.

Harry’s class is located in room 308 – once he finds it he walks inside and all eyes are immediately on him. He averts his gaze from all of the curious ones staring at him and looks at the floor, shuffling his feet.

“May I help you, sir?” Harry hears a voice ask, and looks up to see that the question was directed at him, from the teacher.

“Yeah, sorry –I, erm –I’m new. I was getting my schedule down in the office,” He says awkwardly – still not making eye contact with any of the other students in the room.

“And what’s your name, sir?” The teacher asks – a little tinge of annoyance in his voice from Harry interrupting his class.

“Harry Styles.”

The teacher walks over to his desk in the corner at the front of the classroom and starts rummaging through papers on his desk. He’s muttering something under his breath and then comes up, looking at Harry while pointing at the paper he’s found on his desk. “Your seat is the second seat down the third row – right next to Mr. Grimshaw. Nick, raise your hand.”

Harry looks up to see a boy with dark black hair gelled up into a quiff raising his hand just above his head. Harry nods his head to the teacher in a silent ‘thank you’ and makes his way to his seat and sits down.

“Okay class, get back to work,” Harry hears the teacher say from the front of the room, as he lays his head down on his desk. He doesn’t bother asking anybody what the assignment is, just wanting his first day at this school to be over with already.

He silently listens to the scribbles of pencils on paper, the quiet whispers coming from a group of girls at the back of the classroom, the teacher typing away at his computer. Harry’s starting to drift off – the quiet sounds of the classroom somehow soothing to him – when he feels somebody tap his shoulder. He looks up to see that Grimshaw kid looking at him.

“Never formally introduced myself, mate. I’m Nick. But everyone here calls me Grimmy,” The boy introduces, holding his hand out to Harry.

Harry just stares at his hand until Nick pulls it away with an amused expression on his face. Nick just chuckles at him. “No? Curly doesn’t want a handshake, okay,” He says with a smirk.

“I have a name,” Harry mutters.  
“Oh, yeah?” Nick chuckles – Harry can hear the sarcasm dripping from his tone.

Harry scoffs and shakes his head. “I’m not in the mood for any of this, okay? Now can you just leave me alone?” He goes to lay his head back down on his desk but is stopped by Nick dropping a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m just giving you a hard time, mate,” Nick laughs with a face splitting grin. “You’re alright, kid. What do you say you hang out with me and my buddies today at lunch? Sound good?”

Harry stares at the boy across from him for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should hang out with this kid whom he just met. But then he thinks – why not? It’s only his first class of the day and he’s already somewhat making friends, he can’t turn down the offer.

“Okay, sure,” Harry agrees, shrugging his shoulders.

He and Nick – or Grimmy, as he tells Harry to call him from now on – talk for the rest of the class until the bell rings to go to second period. They soon figure out they don’t have any more classes together until after lunch, so they bid their goodbyes to each other and go their separate ways.

Harry walks into his second period class and notices when he gets there that he’s the first one inside of the classroom. Instead of awkwardly backing out of the room until other students show up – like any other normal person would do – Harry continues towards the teacher’s desk at the front of the classroom. He figures if he finds where his seat is now, he can spare himself the awkward conversation with the teacher in the front of the class.

“Excuse me, miss,” He says politely, trying to get her attention.

She looks up from where it looks like she’s grading some tests. “How may I help you?”

“I’m new here, I was just wondering where my seat is.” As he’s asking this question, students gradually start piling into the classroom – the noise level increasing by the second.

“Name?” She asks.

He states his name to her and she clicks a few buttons on her computer before pointing to a seat in the back of the classroom, stating that’s where he’s to be seated. He thanks her and walks slowly to his seat, seeing that he still has a bit of time left until the class starts.

As he takes his backpack off of his shoulder, putting it on the floor to search through it for his black spiral notebook, two obnoxiously loud boys enter the classroom. Everyone greets them as they pass through and head straight towards the back of the room, each of them taking a seat at the desks on either side of Harry.

Neither of them say anything to the curly headed boy, just glance at him before looking at each other and leaning back in their seats.

The bell rings, signaling that second period has started. The teacher gets up from her desk to talk about the lesson plan for the day and Harry tunes her out. He leans down to grab a pen from his bag and starts doodling into his now open notebook, resting his feet on the seat in front of him.

About fifteen minutes into the class period, the door opens. Harry doesn’t bother to look up to see who’s entered the classroom, just listens to the interaction between the unknown person and the teacher.

“Mr. Tomlinson, do you have a note for being late?” The teacher asks the student.

“No, ma’am. My teacher kept me after to talk about my grades,” Harry hears the guy say in a sheepish tone.

The teacher just sighs, clearly irritated that someone has interrupted her lesson. “Just go to your seat, Mr. Tomlinson,” She dismisses him and continues on with the lesson.

Harry hears footsteps and some shuffling, then someone is standing in front of him clearing their throat. His head snaps up and he’s met by a boy with messy feathery light brown hair and bright blue eyes. He’s wearing a maroon hoodie, a white t-shirt peeking out from underneath, and a pair of tan chinos all matched with a pair of black TOMS.

His face is covered with short scruff. But what Harry notices most of all are the purple bags underneath the boys’ eyes from lack of sleep. Up close, his ‘bright blue eyes’ aren’t as bright as he’d first thought– they’re clouded with what could only be known as _pain._ The boy just looked overall exhausted.

Harry doesn’t realize he’s staring until the boy speaks up. “Can you move your feet, please? This is my seat,” He asks in a quiet, but polite voice.

“Oh, I –yeah. Sorry,” Harry stammers, removing his feet from the chair in front of him.

He’s about to speak up to maybe introduce himself to the boy – Harry doesn’t know, he just wants an excuse to talk to him – but a voice sounds from beside him.

“Hey, _fag_ linson,” One of the boys next to Harry sneers. “I heard Z gave it to you good last night. Did you beg for it like the slut that you are?”

Harry doesn’t miss the way the boy in front of him flinches and hangs his head. Harry snaps his head to the side to tell the asshole next to him to leave him alone, but the kid on the other side of him speaks up too.

“Trust me, curly. You don’t want to mess with this kid. He’s got some fucked up shit going on in his head – likes to make people feel sorry for him just because he’s a _fag_ ,” He spat the last word. “Don’t ever listen to a word he says.”

Harry looks forward to see that the boy has pulled his hood over his head and is slouched down in his seat, arms wrapped around his torso. “I–” Harry begins but is interrupted.

“What’s your name, kid? I’ve never seen you around,” One of the guys asks.

“I –I’m Harry.” He simply states. “I’m new here.”

“Well, Harry boy. You’re with us now,” He says, slapping Harry on the shoulder and gesturing between himself and his friend on Harry’s other side. “We got to keep you away from _freaks_ like that,” He says, nodding to the blue eyed boy in disgust.

Harry knows it’s wrong – that he should stick up for the boy – but he can’t help but feel happy that he’s not having a problem making friends. Of course, these are the kind of people that would make his great Nan want to roll over in her grave, but they’re people who are taking actual interest in him – Harry’d never had that at his old school.

So he agrees to start hanging out with them and their ‘posse’.

“Oh yeah, I’m Chase. That over there is Ryan,” He informs Harry. Harry nods and gives them both a small smile. For the rest of class the three boys talk – not paying attention to the teacher who’s still rambling on about whatever at the front of the classroom.

And throughout the whole class period Harry can’t help but throw small glances over to the seemingly broken boy with sad blue eyes whose name he still doesn’t know.

\--

By time lunch rolls around Harry is starving. He rushes out of the classroom, trying to get to the cafeteria as fast as possible. His speed-walking is quickly slowed by someone calling his name from down the hallway. He turns to see that it’s the perky brunette that had shown him to the main office earlier that day. Eleanor, he remembers.

“Hey, curly,” She smiles, once she approaches him.

“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” He asks in exasperation. “I have a name.”

“Because you’re curly,” She says, ruffling his head of curls for emphasis. She quickly changes the subject and asks, “So, do you have anyone to sit by at lunch?”

Harry shakes his head, momentarily forgetting his premade plans to hang with Grimmy at lunch. She jumps up and down quickly. “Now you do!” She exclaims, grabbing his wrist and dragging him towards the cafeteria.

When the two finally arrive at the cafeteria, Eleanor drags Harry towards her group of friends who are all sitting at one of the many circular tables in the building, all of them engaging in a deep conversation. Sitting at the table is a guy with brown hair with a bit of blonde poking out. A guy with semi short brown hair in the shape of a mini faux-hawk – which Harry has to admit, makes him look a bit like a dinosaur of some sort. A girl with wavy bleach blonde hair and a nose piercing. And lastly, the boy from Harry’s second period is sitting with his head cast down, not engaging in the conversation that the rest of his friends are having.

“Hi, guys!” Eleanor says, still holding Harry’s wrist. Her exclamation catches the attention of all of her friends – even the tired looking blue-eyed boy. They all look curiously at the new boy standing next to their friend. All except the blue-eyed boy, who puts his head back down just as quickly as he’d lifted it once he catches a glance at Harry. “This is Harry, he’s new here. Harry, these are my friends Niall, Liam, Perrie and Louis,” She says, gesturing to them all individually as she names them off.

_Louis._

They smile at Harry – all of them except Louis, who keeps his head down facing the lunch table.

Before Harry can say his hellos back, someone behind him is speaking in a rough voice.

“Louis,” The guy says sharply.

Louis’ head snaps up quickly at the voice, his eyes wide. Harry turns to see who it is and is met by a boy in a black leather jacket, black skinny jeans and a pair of black combat boots to match. His hair is styled up in a high quiff, a blonde streak going straight up the middle. He holds a stoic expression on his face as his hazel eyes stare intensely into the blue ones of Louis. He jerks his head over to the door and Louis scrambles out of his seat, grabbing his bag up off the cafeteria floor. He quickly strides over to the hazel- eyed boy, but strangely doesn’t make any sort of eye contact with him.

The boy snatches up Louis’ arm, jerking Louis closer to his body. Harry sees Louis flinch. From the corner of his eye he can also see Liam trying with all of his might not to jump out of his seat right then. Louis and the mysterious boy turn around and he roughly swings an arm over Louis’ shoulder, whispering something into his ear.

As they’re walking out of the cafeteria doors, Nick, Chase and Ryan all walk in. Nick stops for a second to look into the eyes of the boy who had abruptly come and snatched Louis up. He gives him a quick nod before continuing into the building.

He catches sight of Harry and smiles, venturing over to where Harry’s standing. He swings an arm over his shoulder. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I –yeah,” Harry nods.

“Come on, then,” Nick says, taking Harry over to the double doors and leading him outside of the building, Chase and Ryan following after them.

Harry doesn’t miss it as Nick looks over his own shoulder towards the table they were previously at, sending a smug smirk and a firm middle finger straight to Liam.

\--


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really short, and has waaay too much dialogue. I apologize in advance.

Harry is walking home from his first day of school when he sees him.

He sees a boy with wispy hair, head bobbing above a maroon clothed back, making his way down the road.

He knows it’s Louis the moment he spots him.

Harry quickens his steps to try and catch up to the boy. This proves difficult considering how fast Louis is moving.

When Harry finally catches up to him, he grabs ahold of his shoulder and spins him around. What he sees elicits a loud gasp from within.

Clear as day, a fresh green-purple bruise paints Louis’ face from his temple to just below his cheekbone. His face is flushed a blotchy shade of red; Harry would think it from the cold September air if not for the fresh tears running down Louis’ face, dripping off of his chin onto the cement. Why is he crying? Harry wants to go find the horrible person who put that nasty bruise on his face and made this boy cry and tell them that no one hurts or makes his Louis cry.

Wait, what? _His_ Louis?

Before he realizes what he's doing, Harry is reaching out to brush his hand across Louis’ face. Before he can lay a single finger on him though, Louis is flinching. He stares at Harry’s hand with wide, fearful eyes while slowly backing away. He looks back up at Harry and opens his mouth as if about to speak but quickly closes it again, and why did he do that? Harry really wants to know what he has to say. He keeps his eyes locked with Louis' hoping maybe, just maybe he'll reconsider and say what is on his mind. But Louis breaks the eye contact and turns on his heel, running away as fast as he can. Harry’s left standing in the middle of the street, wondering what the hell just happened.

\--

Harry enters his house still bewildered. He isn’t able to wrap his head around what happened just moments ago. His mind is racing a mile a minute with a million and one questions that he knows he'll probably never get answers to. The thing is, he needs answers. He needs to know why Louis has a bruise on his face; a bruise Harry knows he received sometime between when he’d seen him at lunch and the end of the school day. He needs to know why Louis got so frightened when Harry tried to touch him. He needs to know why Louis looked so lost and broken and in so much pain.

He needs answers for all of these and many more questions running through his head, but he doesn't know why. He doesn't know why he feels obligated to know everything that is happening in Louis’ life, why he feels the sudden urge to protect the seemingly fragile boy and keep him from anything potentially harmful. He’d barely spoken two words to the boy, but he already feels some sort of protectiveness over him.

Harry is brought out of his reverie by his phone ringing from his pants pocket. He grabs his phone and sees that he has a text from Nick. All four boys – Nick, Chase, Harry and Ryan – had exchanged numbers earlier in the day.

_Grimmy: You up for going into town today?_

_Harry: Sure thing, mate._

_Grimmy: What’s your address? I’ll pick you up._

Harry texts the boy his address and Nick confirms that he’ll be at his house in ten minutes. While Harry is waiting he goes to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, surveying its contents for anything of his liking. He eventually finds some left over pie, because who the hell doesn't like pie, which his mum decided to make a couple nights ago for no reason in particular; she just likes baking.

He grabs a fork from the silverware drawer and stands at the island in the middle of the kitchen enjoying his pie until he hears a car honk from outside. He throws the fork into the sink and puts the pie back into the fridge, because he's definitely going to finish that later, before he heads outside to Nick’s car.

He climbs into the passenger’s seat of Nick’s very expensive car, closing the door behind him. Nick pulls away from the house and speeds off down the road.

“What kind of car is this?” Harry asks curiously, taking in the black leather interior.

“2012 Ferrari 458 Italia,” Nick states proudly. “She’s a beaut, isn’t she?”

Harry huffs out a laugh. “I’ll say.” He looks around the car in awe as he speaks. “I’d give anything to have a car like this.”

Nick looks at him in confusion. “You’d expect with a house like yours you’d be able to afford a car like this.”

Yeah, you'd expect a lot of things.

“Yeah, well you don’t have parents who ‘don’t believe in buying their children luxurious things’. They want me to pay for my own shit, it’s ridiculous,” Harry speaks bitterly, shaking his head in annoyance.

His parents always tell him if he wants something of his own then he has to get a job and pay for it himself, otherwise he has to make do with what he has. Harry refuses to get a job – feels that he doesn't have to work for anybody while still being a teenager – so he’s stuck with the things his parents have bought him. He’s lucky he even has a cellphone.

“That’s rough, mate,” Nick chuckles sympathetically, except Harry knows he doesn't feel the least bit sorry for him. No one does, besides himself. Nick revs the engine and speeds up. Harry looks over at the speedometer to see that it reads 65 MPH. He tenses up and looks nervously at Nick which earns him a glance in return and a laugh. “Don’t freak out. I’m a really safe driver, trust me,” He assures Harry.

Harry relaxes in his seat a bit and releases his white-knuckled grip on the door handle, but remains conscious of the possibility of something dangerous happening.

After fifteen more minutes of fast driving and soft chatter, the car comes safely to a stop without incident, in front of the downtown supermall. Harry looks confusedly at his friend and Nick gestures to his clothes.

“I’m not sure what it was like at your old school, but at D. Prep you need to dress at least a bit decent,” He explains while opening his door and stepping out of the car as Harry follows suit. He walks to the other side of the car to give Nick an offended look.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” He asks, holding his arms out to his sides. He likes to think that his clothes are exceptional. They might not match the attire of every other preppy student in the school but he at least dresses decently.

Nick just laughs, giving him a once over and turning to walk towards the mall entrance.

They walk from store to store, Nick trying to find clothes for Harry that are appropriate to wear at their school. It's a bit difficult at first because Harry refuses basically every outfit Nick tries to pick out for him, until a navy blue blazer catches Harry’s eye. He runs over to it, picks it up and holds it out for Nick to see, wanting his approval. Nick simply nods at Harry’s choice. Harry lights up at this and winds up buying six different colored blazers and a couple of button up shirts to match.

The two boys end up getting something to eat for dinner while they’re at the mall. “I think I feel like Thai food, what about you?” Nick asked Harry when they got to the food court. “I could go for McDonalds,” Harry answered, looking at their options. Strangely, they both agree to get Subway. They sit and chat at a table in the middle of the food court talking about absolutely nothing in particular. Harry likes that he has someone he can talk to like he's known them for years, after only meeting them hours before. After they finish their food, they dump their trash in the bin and continue to shop and look around until almost closing time.

As they are about to leave the mall, Nick remembers that he wants to show Harry around Doncaster a bit. They decide to go on foot since the shops are in walking distance of the mall. They’ll come back and get the car when they are done.

It is 10:30 and they are basically the only two people on the street, even though the shops all stay open until midnight. As they are walking down the sidewalk past some shops that Nick insists aren't worth going into and looking around, Harry hears something. He stops in his tracks, causing Nick to stop his rant about why Man. United is the best football team in the league, and tries to decipher where the noise is coming from, but when he doesn't hear anything, he continues walking.

Then he hears it again.

“Do you hear that?” Harry asks.

Nick shakes his head slowly, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

“It sounds like someo-” Harry starts but is cut off by a shrill scream.

_“No! Stop, I’m sorry!”_

_"You’re sorry? Is that what you said? You’re fucking sorry?”_ A deeper voice roars.

Something in Harry snaps and he starts running toward the source of the yelling.

_“Yes! I – I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It won’t happen again, I promise! Please!”_ The other voice starts sobbing uncontrollably.

Harry stops abruptly in his tracks when he finds where the voices are coming from.

They are coming from a dark alleyway down the street.

But it isn't dark enough for Harry to miss what is happening.

Louis Tomlinson getting beat up by Zayn Malik.

 


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize that this took so long for me to post.

Harry wakes up the next morning still thinking about what happened the previous night. He just can’t seem to get it out of his head. The sound of Louis' terrified and pain-filled screams and of Zayn's fist repeatedly connecting with Louis' face - it's all still so vivid, like he’s still standing there with them in the alleyway.

The worst part about it all is that Harry wasn't able to do a damn thing about it. As soon as he'd processed what was happening, Nick had a death grip on the crook of Harry's elbow and was pulling him away, back towards where the car was parked.

His mouth was spewing out phrases like "we shouldn't be here, Harry" and "forget about everything you just saw". But Harry couldn't just leave it alone, couldn't just forget about it.

All he wanted to do was help Louis, run into that alley and keep him from being hurt. The protectiveness that he felt over Louis was unbelievable; he couldn't explain exactly why he felt that way.

Louis was getting the crap beat out of him, there were two witnesses to attest to that, and all Nick could do was walk away. Harry didn't understand how you could just walk away from something like that. Nick obviously isn't the type of person that Harry thought he was.

First period is when Harry really starts to worry. He’s one of the first people in the classroom and as he sits at his desk and watches all of his classmates file in, he doesn’t see Louis walk through the door.

Harry's mind is running a million miles a minute with so many thoughts.

What if something bad happened after him and Nick left?

What if he's in the hospital?

What if Zayn left him there to die?

What if-

Harry's train of thought is interrupted by the tardy bell ringing and the teacher standing up from her desk to announce the assignment for the day.

"Okay, class. I'm going to be putting you into pairs and you guys need to work together to answer the questions I’ve written on the board," She says with a bored expression.

She starts to call out names, pairing up people. Soon she gets to Harry's name, saying that he's working with none other than Nick Grimshaw. Harry looks over to see that Nick is seated in the desk next to him - he must have missed him when he sat down.

The teacher continues down the list of names and then lets everyone get together with their partners once she's finished.

Harry reaches down for his backpack and pulls out a notebook and a pen. He copies down the first question off the board, not bothering to take a look at his partner sitting beside him.

Nick is the one who decides to make the initiative to start a conversation, because if Harry isn't going to then someone has to. He turns his desk so the front of it is facing towards the side of Harry's desk and waits for Harry to acknowledge him.

Harry continues to focus on the work in front of him, only glancing up every once in a while when he's ready to move onto the next question.

Nick takes a deep breath and prepares to start what might be an awkward conversation with Harry. Before he can get a word out, Harry speaks up. "If you're going to bring up what happened last night, then forget it. Like you said, I need to just forget about it. It's forgotten," He says dismissively, still not sparing a glance at Nick.

Nick narrows his eyes and leans in closer to Harry and speaks in a low tone, making sure that no one but the two of them can hear the conversation. "I need you to trust me when I say that I had a good reason for pulling you away from that. You need to understand that the situation that I-"

Harry slams his pen down on to his desk, ignoring the annoyed looks he gets from the teacher and other students around him, and turns his body to face Nick's. "The only thing that I need to understand is that you definitely aren't the kind of person I thought you were. I don't care about the "situation" that you're in, all I know is that I don't want to be a part of it, okay? After last night I don't want to be associated with you in any way, got that? I don't need my reputation being ruined on just my first week here. Just don't- I don't want you talking to me anymore." With that, Harry turns back around in his desk, picks up his pen and continues on with the assignment for the day.

Nick stares at him dumbfounded, because where the hell did that come from? Nick is doing Harry a favor by keeping him out of his, as Harry put it, "situation". But Nick isn't going to take no for an answer, not this time. Harry thinks that being seen with Nick is bad for his reputation?

_No._

Nick's going to do whatever it takes to keep Harry away from that freak, even if that means having to tell a little white lie along the way.

\--

The first thing that comes to Louis Tomlinson's mind when he wakes up is why is he so sore?

He sure as hell didn't have sex, because _reasons._

He can't seem to remember a single thing that happened the night before. He doesn’t even remember stripping off and climbing into bed. He racks his brain to try and remember anything, _just anything please_ , but his mind comes up blank.

Instead of just lying there hurting his brain trying to remember, he decides to go downstairs to make himself some tea. Maybe tea will jumpstart his brain.

Yeah, that's it.

He starts turning his comforter down and finds he’s in his boxers and a dark grey t-shirt, and okay that's normal. Once the comforter is at the foot of the bed, his eyes are immediately drawn to his lower body.

There’s a dark bruise covering the expanse of the inside of his thigh, almost the size of two of his hands put together side-by-side, and where the hell did that come from?

Confused, Louis gets out of bed and finds himself limping a bit because _ow_ his legs feel like he just ran three marathons in a row.

He slowly walks downstairs and into the kitchen, prepared to make himself some tea, but he stops in his tracks when he sees Lottie sitting on a stool at the island in the middle of the kitchen with her head in her hands - a sign of distress.

Louis clears his throat, letting her know that he's entered the room. Her head snaps up and she looks at him with wide, teary eyes.

"Louis!" She gasps. She jumps off the stool and runs towards her older brother. She slams her body into his, pulling him into a tight hug.

" _Ow._ Careful, careful. It hurts!" Louis exclaims, placing his hands on her shoulders and pushing her away.

"I'm so sorry," She says, pulling away from him. "Are you okay? Wait, what am I saying? Of course you're not okay, you-"

Louis sees the clock on the stove reads 9:13 A.M. "Why the hell aren't you in school?" he yells, ignoring everything that Lottie was previously saying.

"I- I couldn't just leave you here by yourself. I was worried about you."

"What? Worried about me? Why?"

"You mean you- you don't remember anything that happened last night?" Lottie asks, giving Louis a look that crosses between confused and concerned.

"Erm, no? Would you like to inform me? And please tell me why the hell I'm so sore?"He groans, twisting his head to the side to try and crack his neck.

"Zayn, he- he left you on the doorstep. He- he was drunk. I- I thought that you were drunk as well. I thought that's why he was dropping you off. But then I- I saw the bruises, the split lip. The black eye," She says, gesturing to Louis' eye. He reaches up and lightly prods his eye to find that it is indeed sore and slightly swollen. "It took me a while to put all of the pieces together, but then I realized what he had done. He- he-" She trails off, putting her head into her hands once again and starts to cry.

It's in this moment that all of the puzzle pieces come together in Louis' head. All of the memories from that night start coming back.

Walking home from the library last night, he'd decided to take the short way home for once.

That's when he found Zayn, drunk, stumbling in the back streets.

For God knows what reason, he'd gotten furious at Louis.

He'd pushed Louis into an alley.

And, then he-

He promised.

But he lied.

"Oh, my gosh," Louis whispers to himself. He looks over to see that his baby sister is still crying. He walks over to her and pulls her into a hug. "Hey, hey. Don't cry. I'm okay."

"No, you're not!" She wails. "Look at you!" She exclaims, pushing him away. "You're covered in bruises, Louis. You're not fucking okay."

"Hey, watch your mouth, Lottie," He says sharply, momentarily forgetting the conversation at hand.

"No. Have you seen yourself? Have you looked in the mirror today? Look at what he did to you. You don't deserve this. Why are you still doing this? Have you thought about how this affects your life? If you don't get out of this now, he's never going to stop! He's going to think that he has full control over you. You need to end this!" She screams at Louis, trying to get it through his thick head. This is probably the millionth time that she's given her brother this speech, and every time, he never listens.

"You have no right to tell me how I need to live my life, Charlotte!" He screams back at her.

"Yes, I know that. But I know what he's capable of! He could kill you, Louis."

Louis shakes his head. "No, no no. You don't get to say that. He would never do that to me. It was a mistake, Lottie. Just let it go," He growls.

"Just let it go? Just let it go?! How are you going to say this was a mistake? Mistakes are made once, and never again. He's been at this for God knows how long, and you're not even attempting to do anything about it. I understand that you're eighteen years old - you're a grown man. But that does not change the fact that you are my brother and I have a divine right to worry about you!"

"Who are you to say what's good for me, and what's not? What do you know, Lottie? You're only fifteen years old for crying out loud. There's nothing you can do about it, okay? It was a drunken mistake."

"It was not a drunken mistake, Louis. He's done it plenty times before in a sober state, but yet you continue to associate yourself with him. Stop making excuses for him!"

She waits for a response from her older brother but one never comes. She scoffs and shakes her head. "You know what? Fine. Don't listen to me, then. But don't come crying to me the next time it happens. Because you know there's going to be a next time." She adds on when Louis tries to interrupt her, "I've tried telling you time and time again. But I'm tired of talking to a brick wall. I'm done."

She looks him up and down, taking in the bruises littering almost every inch of his body. Her eyes start welling up again and before Louis can catch her crying again, she spins around on her heel and marches up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. She throws herself face first onto her bed and starts sobbing into her pillow because she doesn't want this for her brother. No one does.

The fact that this has been going on for three years is just ridiculous. At the beginning, Lottie was too young to understand what was going on - what with only being twelve years old. But that didn't stop her from noticing the way her brother had started shutting himself out or how he had stopped being so happy. It didn’t stop her from noticing the way that he just stopped being Louis in general. When he would come home late at night, thinking no one was noticing him trying to sneak in, her young age didn’t keep her from seeing the bruises covering his face and arms and legs as he limped up the stairs.

As soon as she got old enough to understand everything that was happening she tried telling him that it was dangerous and that it needed to stop immediately. But, he still didn't listen. And it breaks her heart because she knows that her brother doesn't deserve this.

At this point she feels like there's absolutely nothing that she can do.

She's clueless as to how she can save her brother.

At the other end of the hallway past the closed door of Louis' room he's sitting on his bed crying his eyes out, clueless as to how he's going to get himself out of this.

\--


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am so sorry. It's literally been a month since I last updated, and I've been keeping you guys waiting. And I literally have no excuse as to why I haven't updated, except for that I'm lazy and I procrastinate way too much.
> 
> Don't hate me. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Being "popular" is something that every high school student wants. Everyone wants to have the chance to fit in with the "cool kids". Most people believe that hanging with the in-crowd can improve your reputation, automatically making you one of the most liked people in the school. Sometimes hanging with the  _popular_ group can cause you to make bad decisions that you don't realize affects you and the people around you until it's too late. But in the heat of the moment you'll do anything you possibly can just to "fit in". 

Even if it means hurting the people you love along the way. 

\--

Harry is walking home from school one day, headphones lodged into his ears with the music blaring in his ears - he believes that listening to music on the walk to and from school makes it seem like less of a hassle. He's currently listening to his favorite artist - Ed Sheeran - because who doesn't love a little ginger jesus every once in a while. 

He sees a car pull up beside him from his peripheral but doesn't stop to pay any attention to it, just keeps on with his trek home because the sooner that he gets home the sooner he gets to eat those triple fudge brownies that his mom made the night before.

The car beside him slows down - slowing down to the pace of Harry's walking. Harry continues to ignore the car, determined to get home - only ten more minutes until he gets to fill his mouth with sweet chocolatey goodness. He reaches into the pocket of the hoodie that he's currently sporting, and searches with his thumb on the side of his phone until he finds the volume button and turns up his phone to the highest volume until Ed is screaming in his ear about  _the taste that your lips allow._

A good five minutes pass and the car is still following him. Harry finally finds it in himself to turn around to ask this strange person  _why the hell are you following me?_ Because either this person is someone he knows and for some odd reason they aren't calling out his name, or it's the complete opposite and as soon as Harry turns his body around, he's going to get attacked and shoved into the musty trunk of someone's car.  _  
_

He should've called his mom earlier to tell her he loves her. 

He finally spins around and stops in his tracks once he acknowledges whose car it is.

_Nick Grimshaw._

Harry turns back around and begins to walk determinedly towards home - or more importantly,  _those fucking brownies._

Harry can faintly hear Nick calling out his name from behind him, but ignores him. Harry then feels a strong hand grip his shoulder and is soon being quickly spun around. The expression on Nick's face is a mixture of anger, confusion, and - what is that?  _Desperation?_

Nick reaches up and grabs at the cord of Harry's earphones and roughly yanks them out from where they're lodged into his ears. 

Harry gives him a look of anger and disbelief. " _What?_ " He growls. 

"Can you talk to me, dude?" Nick asks desperately.

"You think that creepily following me home is going to make me want to talk to you?"

"Obviously school isn't the place you want to talk. You've been avoiding me all week, mate. What's going on?" Nick stupidly asks. 

Harry balks in disbelief, because  _seriously?_ He opens his mouth to respond but no sound comes out.  _What's going on?_ Harry doesn't even want to think about how  _stupid_  that question is. "I-" Harry shakes his head. He's trying to find the words to say but there's no logical answer to that question. At least not in this situation.  _  
_

"You- I-  _what's going on?"_ Is what Harry finally ends up uttering - repeating Nick's words back to him because he can't believe Nick even asked him that _._

"Yeah, man. Did I do something to upset you?" 

Harry looks up to the Gods above and silently prays for this kid, because  _really? Again with the stupid questions._

"You- you seriously have no idea what you did?" He asks. "You just- you witnessed a guy, that goes to our school might I add, get his ass beat to a fucking pulp. And then you have the audacity to just  _walk away._ And act like nothing ever happened - dragging me right along with you, as if I didn't witness it with my own two eyes." 

"If you would just hear me out, I-" Nick tries to explain. 

"I don't want to hear you out, Nick. You're fucking  _sick._ How can you-" Harry starts to rant, but is interrupted by Nick blurting something out. 

 _"He killed my brother."_ Nick yells. 

Harry stops his rant to stare at Nick in disbelief. "He-  _what?"_

Nick's standing in front of him, staring at him with wide eyes. Harry sees something flash in his eyes - panic, maybe? But it's gone before Harry can register what it is. Nick takes a deep breath. "Yeah, he just- did it. Look, I don't want to go into detail about how it happened, but just know that the kid is a freak. He's got something going on in his head, I don't know what it is, and I don't want to know what it is. All I know is that he's a proper psycho, and believe me when I say that he deserves what he's getting." _  
_

"Okay, yeah. But, he-"

"You got any siblings?" Nick asks.

"Y-yeah, an older sister. Her name's Gemma." Harry mumbles quietly, trying to process the information that Nick just hit him with. 

Nick nods. "And you'd go crazy if anything happened to her, right? You'd do whatever you could to get your revenge." 

"I-I mean, I guess." Harry shrugs. "But, I wouldn't go as far as-"

"The kid  _deserves it._ " Nick states in a firm voice, with a tinge of disgust hiding behind it. 

Harry doesn't know what he's thinking in that moment, but something in his head is telling him to just agree with whatever Nick's saying. The part of his mind that's only thinking about the possible popularity that Nick can bring him, and he knows it can never be possible if Harry doesn't agree with him. The logical and rational part of his mind has completely shut down at that point. 

"Yeah, I guess he does. Look, mate, I'm sorry about saying whatever I said. I just- I wasn't thinking, apparently." Harry chuckles quietly.

Nick laughs along with him and claps him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, mate. I'm just glad that we got the chance to put everything in order. Hey, what do you say we head to my place right now? Just chill, play a couple rounds of FIFA. How about it?" 

"Nah, I'm good. I should really be getting home, but thanks for the invite. Maybe some other time." Harry rejects him, because even through everything that just happened, he still hasn't forgotten about those brownies waiting for him at home. 

Nick nods in understanding. "Okay, well I'll just see you at school, then."

Harry smiles and waves him off. He turns around as Nick slides into his car and speeds off down the road, and begins to walk the rest of the way home. 

Even as he's sat contentedly on the couch in front of the TV, with a plate full of triple fudge brownies and a tall glass of milk, he can't help but think of what Nick told him. Thinking of the tiny, fragile boy he encountered on his first day at Doncaster Prep, Harry doesn't believe for one second that he's capable of killing someone. But, his mom always told him that you can never judge a book by it's cover. 

And Louis is the thickest hardback book that Harry's ever came across. 

\--

Louis hasn't been at school for over a week. Which means one of two things - he's either at home sick with some type of deadly illness, or something bad happened. And Liam is sat in class one day, not paying any attention to a word that his teacher is saying, praying that Louis sick. 

God, please let him be sick.

The worst part about being Louis' best friend, is that Liam feels like there's no possible way that he can help Louis. Three years ago, Louis was the happiest person that Liam had ever had the opportunity to be around. He was surprisingly one of the most popular people in school - Liam wouldn't consider him to have been a jock, but everyone, and he means  _everyone,_ knew who Louis was. They still do, just not in the way that you would want to be known as. Louis was always going out to be with his friends - his mom had to remind him almost everyday that Louis still had a family at home that he needed to spend time with. He was the most spontaneous and random guy that Liam had ever known, always up to do anything without any thought process or hesitation.

His bright blue eyes were always that -  _bright._ They always had a sparkle in them, whether is was of mischief or happiness, it was there. You never once saw Louis without a smile on his face. Nowadays, you're lucky if you can even get half a smile. There's no emotion when you look into his eyes, just a dull grey-blue staring blankly at you. Louis was never the type of person to wear his heart on his sleeve - always knew how to keep his emotions intact - and that's definitely the one thing that hasn't changed about him.

You can't get through the steel gates that are Louis' eyes to know what he's thinking. You just know that he's going through a lot, just by looking at him - his appearance. Louis' let himself go ever since things started getting bad, he started to not care about his appearance which led him to coming to school in sweatpants, a t-shirt - clean or dirty, Louis stopped caring a long time ago - and a hoodie, all topped off with a beanie sat on his head.

He was always getting weird looks from people, what with going to a fancy private school, but he didn't even care about the rude looks anymore because  _why the hell should he?_ He stopped caring about a lot of things along time ago.

Liam worries about him on a day-to-day basis, especially days when he isn't at school, because why shouldn't he? Louis' his best friend for christs sake. But most of the time, Liam feels like the shittiest best friend ever, because he should be  _helping_ Louis, not just standing on the sidelines watching it all happen right in front of his eyes.

He feels completely helpless when Louis shows up at his house at half past three in the morning trembling all over with barely there bruises on his face that are sure as hell going to be noticeable in the morning. And as soon as he falls into Liam's arms, there is no stopping the heart wrenching sobs that begin to fall out of Louis' mouth.

Liam's tried everything he possibly could think of to help him get out of this life-threatening situation, but as soon as Liam mentions anything even relating to the police, it's always  _no no you can't, Liam, you can't, just please promise me that you won't call the police, I'll fix this I promise, just swear to me you won't call the police, please._

And every time, Liam believes him. 

And it always comes back to Liam ending up with a broken boy clutching his t-shirt in his tiny hands, repeating the same words over and over again every single time.

The same words that break Liam's heart all over again each time.

_I'm so scared._

_\--_

Liam is sat on his bed after school, doing some Chemistry homework that he does not understand one bit. The thing is, he didn't even sign up for Chemistry - he signed up for a Drumline class, but apparently the class was too full before he could even be considered, so they put him in Chemistry - leaving him to figure out what the mass of helium and nitrogen are put together. 

His phone starts vibrating on the bed beside him, but he decides to ignore it for now because he is  _way_ behind in his Chemistry class, even though school only started three weeks ago. Procrastination at it's finest.

His phone finally stops vibrating, allowing him to focus on his work again, when about three minutes later it starts up again. Liam huffs out a breath and slams his Chemistry book closed, because he's definitely not going to be getting any work done tonight, it seems. 

He reaches out and grabs his phone and looks at the caller I.D.

_Nialler :)_

Liam's heart starts to race just at the sight of Niall's name showing up on his phone. He stares at it with his mouth hanging open before he realizes that if he doesn't answer his phone this time, then Niall might not call him back a second time.

He takes a deep breath, then swipes his thumb across the screen to answer it. 

"Hey." He says into the speaker, then winces when he realizes that his voice suddenly rose an octave higher. He clears his throat, then tries again. "Hey, how's it going?"

 _"It's going good."_ Niall says casually.  _"Hey, so my parents are going out of town for the weekend. So, I'm going to be by myself in this big ol' house, and I was wondering if you-"_

Liam tuned out the rest of Niall's words because he's talking about his parents going out of town and how he's lonely at home so he wants  _Liam_ to come keep him company. He didn't call up some random girl from his contacts list and invite them over - he invited  _Liam._

Liam can't help the grin that starts to form on his face, because  _Niall Horan just invited him to his house while his parents are gone._

Liam is brought out of his reverie by Niall calling his name in his ear. 

 _"Li, you there?"_ He asks worriedly.

"Huh?" Liam asks stupidly, then realizes that Niall had asked him a question. "Oh, y-yeah, I'm here."

_"I was just asking if you wanted to come stay over for the weekend, because I'm bored as hell here in this house. Only if you want to, though, mate. I can always ask someone else."_

"No!" Liam yelled. "I- I mean, yeah. Yeah, I can come. That's totally fine with me."

Niall laughed. God, that laugh. "Alright, _cool! You can come now if you want, I just really need something to do before I go crazy."_

"Yeah, sure. I'll be over in twenty." Liam explained, already dumping out the contents from his school bag and replacing textbooks and homework with overnight clothes. 

By the time the two boys say their goodbyes and hang up the phone, Liam already has his bags packed and is walking out of the door out to his car. 

Okay, so sue him if he has a little crush. 

A big crush.

Okay, so Liam has been in love with Niall since their sophomore year when Niall moved to Doncaster.

It's just - the shining blue eyes, the blonde-brunette hair, his beautiful smile, his melodic laugh - just everything about him.

It's perfect. 

Liam has been pining after him for two years, hoping that one day Niall will come to his senses and see that Liam is the right person for him. 

But, maybe Liam is the one who should come to his senses. Because Niall is the guy who hooks up with a different girl every weekend. Niall is the guy who would never even think about hooking up with a guy, let alone date one. 

That doesn't stop Liam's heart from racing every time Niall's skin comes into contact with his, though.

But it's  _wrong._ Because Liam is Niall's best friend, he shouldn't even be thinking about potential relationships between the two of them, but he can't help it. 

He can't control his feelings.

Liam pulls into Niall's driveway and parks next to his car. He grabs his overnight bag from the passengers seat beside him and gets out of the car, pushing the lock button twice on his keys until his car beeps to confirm that it's locked.

He knocks once he gets to the door and hears a voice from inside yell, "Come in!" Liam enters the house and toes off his shoes before going to look for Niall. He soon finds him in the kitchen, leaning against the island in the middle of the kitchen. 

He looks up when Liam enters and his face noticeably brightens. He pushes himself off of the counter and strides over to Liam, engulfing him into a tight hug. 

Liam wraps his arms around Niall's slim waist in return, hugging him back just as tightly. He takes a deep breath, subtly breathing in Niall's sweet scent. 

They both pull back from their embrace, Niall patting Liam's shoulder. "Thank's for coming over, mate. Don't know what I would've done in this house by myself." He laughs. 

Liam laughs along with him just as the microwave starts beeping, signalling that whatever was cooking is now done. Niall turns around and opens the microwave and pulls out a bag of popcorn. He turns and grabs a big bowl from the cabinet beside the microwave and pours the popcorn into the bowl. 

He turns to face Liam. "I hope you don't mind staying in and watching a movie."

 _As long as I'm with you, it doesn't matter._ "Yeah, that's cool. What movie are we watching?" Liam asks as they both make their way into the living room. 

Niall sets the popcorn onto the coffee table and then walks over to the shelf of movies that his family has collected over the years. He starts reading off random movie names to Liam, and they finally end up agreeing on  _Case 39._ _  
_

Niall turns off all the lights and then sits down on the opposite side of the couch from Liam. He grabs the blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over the lower half of his body. He leans over and taps Liam on the shoulder and lifts up half of the blanket, looking at Liam in question. 

Liam contemplates for a second on whether or not it's a good idea to be so close to Niall, in the dark, watching a scary movie - but decides that he's to cold to refuse the offer. He scoots over and gets under the blanket and Niall wraps his arm around Liam's shoulder, bringing him in closer.

_It's okay, Liam. He's your best friend. Calm down._

About halfway through the movie Liam finds himself completely relaxed into the side of Niall's body - his arm having subconsciously wrapped itself around his waist. 

On a particularly scary part, Liam about nearly jumps out of his own skin, causing his arms to tighten around Niall. Niall just chuckles and does something that Liam wasn't expecting at all - that causes his heart to start racing much more than it already was. 

He places a soft lingering kiss onto the side of Liam's head, whispering, "It's just a movie, Liam." 

Liam turns his head to look at Niall to find his blue eyes already softly looking at Liam. He slowly leans forward and lightly kisses Liam on the forehead, causing his eyes to flutter closed. He then shifts both of their bodies so that they're laying down, Liam's body draped over his own. 

Niall continues to plant random kisses to the top of Liam's head throughout the remainder of the movie. 

They eventually end up falling asleep together on the couch, contentedly wrapped up in each other's arms.

\--

Harry is walking down an empty hallway on his way to the main office - he's late today, due to his alarm mysteriously not going off - when he hears it. He hears someone talking in a low voice, probably hoping that nobody will hear what they're saying. And the voice sounds angry. He furrows his eyebrows in confusion and turns down a hallway in the opposite direction of the office, searching for the source of the voice. 

As he rounds the corner, the voice seems to get closer and he looks around the corner to see that there are two boys standing in a corner - one of them with his back to Harry, looming over the other boy, blocking his face from Harry's view. He scoots back around the corner, out of sight from the two boys. He knows that it's wrong to eavesdrop on something that is completely none of his business, but for some reason, he feels the need to stay and listen in on what's happening. 

"What have you been telling people? Huh?" The low voice asks, then he hears a thud - the sound of someone being shoved. "Are you trying to make people feel sorry for you, is that it?" 

Then Harry hears the other voice. "What? I- no. No, I haven't. I swear." The voice sounds familiar, Harry swears he's heard it somewhere before. Maybe in one of his classes? At lunch?

But then it suddenly clicks in his head.

He'd recognize that voice anywhere. From the first day that they met, even though they'd only spoken a maximum of three words to each other. He'd kept that voice stored in the back of his head for some reason.

It's Louis. 

"Are you lying to me? Because from what I've heard, you've been-" 

"I promise I'm not lying. Please, you have to believe me." Louis begs desperately. "I haven't said anything to anyone."

Harry doesn't know what all of this is about, but whatever it is, Louis can deal with it on his own. He doesn't need Harry's help. He got himself into this situation, then he can get himself out. 

Harry knows that it's wrong to think that but all he knows is that he can't get caught up in whatever is going on in Louis' head. So, with that, he pushes himself off of the wall he's leaning on and turns around, coming back the way he came and makes his way to the office to get a tardy slip for class. 

\--

Harry finds himself sitting at the same lunch table that he was sitting at on his first day at Doncaster Prep - the one that he's been sitting at almost everyday since. He's come to find that these people aren't actually that bad - Liam, Niall, Eleanor, Perrie, 

and Louis. 

He knows that it kind of defeats the purpose of wanting to keep his reputation up by not associating himself with Louis, but he can't really help it when his other friends are also friends with him. So, if that means that he has to completely ignore Louis' presence, then that's what he's going to do. 

He would sit with Nick and the others, but they're always saying that they have some "business" that they need to take care of everyday during lunch, and they'd rather Harry didn't get in the middle of it. Okay, whatever that's supposed to mean. So, Harry just goes along with it - it's not like he doesn't have other friends.

Perrie and Eleanor are engaged in an intense conversation about whether or not Jennifer Lawrence deserves to be cast in the next Hunger Games movie. Liam and Niall are quietly talking to one another, if you can even consider it talking, they're mostly just smiling and giggling at each other. Well, that's weird. Harry will have to ask Liam about that later.

That leaves him with no one to talk to besides Louis, and he doesn't really want to do that. Reputation, and all. But he can't help but notice the look in Louis' eyes as he stares off into nothing. It almost looks like confusion, like he doesn't know what he's meant to be doing at this moment. Like he's having a battle with his mind on what path he wants to take - whether the one he's moving towards is the right one. Not just for himself, but for the people around him. 

Harry doesn't know how he gets this just from one look into the boys eyes, but he just does. Louis may think that he has himself guarded - that nobody can see past him or through him. But Harry can. He knows that Louis' confused, he knows that there's something more going on with him than what he's telling everybody - than what he's trying to tell himself. 

Part of Harry wants to believe everything of what Nick has told him - about all of the horrible things that Louis has done. Wants to believe it when Nick says that he deserves everything that's given to him. But he feels like there's something more there than just the little things, the little details, that Nick is telling him. 

Before Harry can go more into thought about the subject, someone is tapping him on his shoulder. As he refocuses on his surroundings, comes back to reality, he realizes that he'd been staring at Louis while he was deep into his thoughts. Luckily Louis didn't notice. 

Harry looks over to Liam who had been trying to get his attention, and raises his eyebrows in question. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to go out with us tonight?" Liam asks. 

Harry shrugs. "Depends on who the 'we' is." He jokes. 

Liam chuckles lightly and shrugs. "Me and Niall." He states, then looks over to where Louis is sat. "You want to join us, Lou?" 

Louis' head snaps up from where his gaze had moved to staring intensely at the lunch table. "Huh? Oh, I erm- yeah. I'll just have to check with-" He trails off as he notices that everyones eyes are focused solely on him. "My, erm- my schedule." Louis' eyes lower quickly back down to the table in what seems like panic, but Harry can't really tell because Liam is talking to him again.

"So, how about it, Harry?" He asks. 

Harry opens his mouth to speak and glances over at Louis who is peering at Harry from under his eyelashes, as if anticipating his response. "I-" He begins, then takes a deep breath and looks back over to Liam. "Ah, I- I just remembered, man. I already made plans with the guys tonight. Can't reschedule, sorry."

"The guys?" Liam asks, putting air quotes around  _'the guys'._

"Yeah, Nick and them." Harry explains. He doesn't miss the way that Louis flinches and curls into himself at the mention of Nick's name.

Something in Liam's mood changes quickly, and his expression turns sour. "I see." He nods. "Yeah, well you have fun." He sets his mouth into a tight line and turns back to face Niall. 

At that moment, Harry's phone vibrates in his pants pocket. He takes it out and sees that he has a text message. 

_Grimmy: meet me & the boys in the back of the school. quick_

Harry pockets his phone and grabs his backpack from where it was sitting on the floor beside the chair that he's sitting in. He slings it over his shoulder and stands, placing a hand on Liam's shoulder. Liam stops mid-sentence and turns to look at Harry. "I promise we'll hang out soon, mate. I've just been really busy lately with-" 

" _The guys._ Yeah, I get it. Don't worry about it." Liam gives him a small smile. 

"Right. Well, I gotta go. I'll see you later, yeah?" Liam nods and waves his hand, shooing him off. "See ya, Niall. Bye, girls." He adds on - completely ignoring Louis' presence. They all say their goodbye's back and Harry spins around and jogs out of the cafeteria to go meet with his friends. 

\--

It's when Harry, Nick, Ryan and Chase are walking through the schools courtyard together is when it happens. 

They're all walking together, talking absolute nonsense to each other. Harry has his head turned, laughing at something that Chase just said when someone runs into him. This causes his head to snap forward and down to the ground where the person who ran into him fell down. 

He sees that it's Louis who had ran into him. 

He's on his hands and knees, crawling around on the floor, scrambling to quickly pick up his books from where they fell. 

Harry is stuck staring at him, watching his actions when Nick nudges him with his elbow. This brings Harry out of his reverie and the words are spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"Watch where you're going, fag." He spits. 

Harry doesn't know why he says it. It seems as if his mouth has absolutely no filter. It's like his brain is having a hard time catching up with his mouth. It's almost as if his sense of respect has totally flown out of the window and the words just come out without him realizing it. And when he does realize it, it's too late.

Words of praise and encouragement are coming from his friends standing behind him - but to Harry, they're just a faint murmur in the background. His main focus is on the boy on the ground, staring up at Harry like he can't believe what he just said.

He wishes so badly that he could take it back, but he knows there's no way that's going to happen. It's already been said, it's already been done, and by the way that Louis is looking at him with so much disbelief and hurt, he knows for sure that he's already done for.

Harry is stuck in his spot - his feet glued to to the ground. It's like him and Louis are the only people in the courtyard - and it's definitely not in the good sense. Everything around him seems to be going in slow motion and he can't seem to take his eyes off of Louis.

It seems like minutes, maybe hours, have passed by - but it really has only been a few seconds - and Louis breaks their eye contact and finishes gathering his books into his arms and stands up - his head still cast down to the ground. Harry can hear people around him, including his friends, throwing homophobic slurs at Louis, but Harry can't find it in him to care. All he cares about is the way Louis curls in on himself as he exits the courtyard, and the way that his shoulders start to tremble as he tries his hardest not to let his tears spill until he gets somewhere quiet and safe.

Harry's brought out of his trance when he feels his friends start to slap him on the shoulder - congratulating him for God knows what. He tries his best to smile, tries to make it seem like what he just said didn't completely rip him apart from the inside out, but the best he can give them is a weak half smile - if that. He silently excuses himself from the group of people now gathered around him and, without even thinking about it, starts to make his way off the school campus.

He doesn't want to stay at that school, where his now popularity has seemingly grown just because he decided to be a complete dick for two seconds. That's not what he wants to be known for - but it seems like that's the way it's going to be from now on.

He doesn't know where those words came from - hell, he didn't even know that those words were even in his vocabulary. This isn't the way that he was brought up, this isn't the kind of person that his mom raised him to be.

Believing whatever anyone tells him, instead of getting it straight from the source, just because he thinks it will make him fit in more. Calling people horrible names in front of basically half of the school just to make himself "look better". When in reality, it did the exact opposite. It made him look like a total asshole in front of everybody and that's not the way that he wants people to seeing him. Not the kind of person he wants people to think he is. Because he's not. He's really not.

Sure, it will make Nick and the others think more highly of him. But is that really what he wants? He realized in that moment when he was stood staring at Louis that he's become exactly like them. He's become a person that people now only like because of the simple fact that they're just scared of him - and they don't want to say the wrong thing to him in fear of their reputation going down the drain.

He doesn't want to be remembered that way. He wants to be remembered as the person that his mom raised him to be - respectful, endearing. Someone that when people talk about him, they think "he's a good guy" or "oh yeah, he's funny". Not just "there's that popular kid".

No.

Harry could tell from the very first time that him and Louis made eye contact that there was something going on with him. Something that he's kept bottled up inside for a long time.

He doesn't know what it is - doesn't have any idea of what it could possibly be - but he's going to figure it out. He's made it this mission to get inside Louis' brain, to figure out what's going on with him.

Fuck Nick. Fuck his reputation. That isn't what matters. That isn't the person that he wants to be, and that's not going to be the person he's going to be remembered as.

But first he needs to apologize to Louis.

That's only if Louis will give Harry the time of day and hear him out.

It's worth a shot.

\--


	5. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me.

Harry doesn't see Louis for the next couple of days. He's beginning to notice that Louis misses more school than a person normally should. And he can't help but think that it has to do with what's been going on in Louis' life - but Harry can't make any assumptions until he knows for sure what's going on.

He's been avoiding Nick as much as he possibly can. But he's finding it hard to do when he has half of his classes with him. Because of that, Harry only talks to Nick when he really has to or when Nick initiates the conversation. When it comes to Nick wanting to hang out, Harry just makes up the excuse that he has tons of homework to do and _I really can't afford to fail this next test, man._

During lunch, Harry just goes to study in the library by himself or sits at the computer and finds whatever games he can online. He doesn't dare go sit with Liam, Niall and the girls anymore - in fear that Louis told them what happened, which would cause them to most likely hate him. He doesn't want to cause any more conflict than he already has.

But that doesn't last very long.

Harry is walking down the hallway, on his way to class when he's roughly pushed into the bathroom all of a sudden. The person that pushed him slams the door closed behind them and locks it before slamming Harry up against a wall.

Harry finally makes eye contact with the person and sees that it's Liam. He looks angry - no furious - and Harry thinks he knows why.

He opens his mouth to try and explain himself before Liam starts accusing him, but he beats Harry to it.

"Do you enjoy making people's lives miserable?" He growls. "Do you have _any_ idea what you've done to him?"

Harry shakes his head in confusion. "What? I- I don't-"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about." Liam tightens his grip on the collar of Harry's t-shirt and shoves him into the wall harder. "He's already got enough shit going on and he doesn't need you making it worse."

"That wasn't my intention." Harry tries to reason with him. "I was just-"

"What? So you just go around throwing homophobic slurs at just anyone?"

"No!" He exclaims. "You don't understand. I didn't mean it. I've been trying to find him so I can-"

"Stay the hell away from him." Liam seethes. "Go back to whatever you and your friends were doing. I don't care. _Just stay away from him._ "

Harry stands there opening and closing his mouth, trying to find something else to say. Something that will convince Liam that he didn't mean any serious harm. But he can't find anything.

Before Liam can say anything else, Harry hears voices coming from outside of the bathroom.

 _"Yeah, I think I saw him go in here. Hold on."_ The voice says.

The door then opens and Harry sees Niall walk in. He notices the events that are happening and walks over to Liam, grabbing onto his hands - trying to pry them off of Harry's shirt.

"Liam, let go of him. He's not worth it." Niall says.

Liam seems to contemplate Niall's words for a couple of seconds - on whether or not he should just let Harry get away with this without some kind of consequence - but he decides to just let karma take care of him and shakes his head in disgust at Harry before letting go of him.

Niall grabs his hand and starts to pull him out of the bathroom but Liam turns back around and points a finger at Harry threateningly.

"I mean what I said." He warns, then turns back around and reluctantly walks out of the bathroom with Niall.

\--

Harry spends the rest of the day trying to come up with ways to get to Louis - since Liam is basically his personal bodyguard now. He almost starts to make a list on how to get to him, but decides against it.

It's just that, he almost feels obligated to apologize to him. Liam's words keep running through his mind, do you enjoy making people's lives miserable? Harry didn't mean for it to go that far, but now that it has, he knows for sure that he needs to apologize if it's the last thing he does.

He's determined to get Louis alone and make him listen to him and hear him out.

\--

Louis can hear voices coming from downstairs - his mom talking to someone - before the talking suddenly stops and then he hears footsteps walking up the stairs.

Louis starts involuntarily shaking and his breath starts quickening when he thinks about who it could possibly be. He keeps his eyes locked on the door, anticipating someone to just barge into his room without warning.

After a couple of seconds, he hears someone knock on the door and he sits very still as he waits for an angry voice to sound, but it doesn't come. All that comes is another knock.

He eventually croaks out a "come in". The door slowly opens and the person peeks their head in and Louis audibly lets out a sigh of relief when he sees who it is.

"What's wrong with you?" Liam chuckles lightly.

"Nothing, just." Louis sighs. "Thought you were someone else."

Liam furrows his eyebrows in confusion but doesn't ask any further questions. He just simply closes the door behind him and makes his way over to go sit by Louis on his bed.

Before Liam walked in, Louis was in the middle of doing some missing work - work that was due two weeks ago, he thinks. He stopped keeping track of when his assignments were due a long time ago, he just does them when he feels like it now. Even if it does put him at risk for getting kicked out of school.

He closes his textbook and throws everything onto the floor next to his bed to make room for Liam to sit down. Liam sits and scoots back on the bed until his back is resting against the wall that the bed is pushed up against and pulls his knees up to his chest.

Both boys sit in silence for several minutes - Liam playing with a piece of thread that is sticking out of Louis' blanket, and Louis is just sat staring blankly at the wall. Liam's starting to notice that he's been doing that a lot.

Liam is the first one to talk.

"Are you going to tell me where you've been, lately?" He asks.

"What are you talking about?" Louis asks innocently.

"How you've been missing school more than usual? How you've only been to school a total of maybe two weeks this whole entire school year." Liam explains.

"I've just been sick."

"No, I'm not going to fall for that. You're one of the most healthy people that I know, you rarely ever get sick. Seriously, what's going on, man?"

"Nothing's going on, Liam." Louis says in exasperation. "I'm _fine._ "

"You're not fine. There's something going on here, that you're not telling me. What, with the way you've been acting - you've been pulling yourself away from everyone. And I'm not the only one who's noticed - Niall and the girls have, as well. I don't even remember when the last time was that I saw you _actually_ smile, Louis."

Louis turns his head and sees Liam starting at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Louis just throws him a cheesy smile and then looks away again.

"There." He says flatly. "I smiled."

"Is this some kind of joke to you? There's something seriously-"

"Why do you even care, Liam?" Louis asks sharply.

"Why do I care?" Liam asks in disbelief. "You're my best friend, I have a right to care about you, mate. I'm just worried about you, that's all. Look, you know you can come to me with anything, yeah? I just want to help-" Louis tries to reason with him, but Louis isn't having it.

 _"I don't need your help!"_ He yells. "Okay? I don't want your help. I don't want anyone's help. Just stay out of my business. Leave me the fuck alone! I can handle this myself. Just- please. I don't want you getting into the middle of this. I just- don't. Please, Liam." Louis begs him desperately.

Liam then notices tears welling up in Louis eyes. He gasps. "Louis."

Louis just shakes his head. "I'm begging you. Don't make this any of your business. I'm working it out. I'm taking care of it, I promise you. Just. Stay out of it. Please."

Liam looks at his friend with sad eyes, watching the tears slowly fall down his cheeks. "Louis, mate. I don't like seeing you like this - no one does. It kills me that you don't have enough trust in me to-"

"It's not that I don't trust you. I do." Louis shakes his head. "I just. I don't need anybody else getting hurt. Okay?"

"Hurt?" Liam gasps. "Louis, this is serious. You need to-"

"I told you. I'm taking care of it. I can't say anything else. I've already told you too much." Louis starts to chew on the inside of his cheek in nervousness.

"Too much? What the hell is going on, here?" Liam starts to get frustrated.

Louis turns his whole body to face his best friend and takes his hands in his own. "I'll tell you what. I'll tell you everything that's happening as soon as I have everything sorted out, yeah? But until then, I need you to trust me when I say that I'm okay." His voice starts shaking when he says the last two words.

Liam shakes his head, "I can't-"

"Please, Liam." Louis begs, his tears starting to fall all over again.

Liam just slowly shakes his head, averting his gaze from Louis' before saying "okay".

"Thank you." Louis breathes. He lets go of Liam's hands and holds his arms out, indicating that he wants a hug, which Liam happily takes.

"I'm not just going to forget about this. I expect an explanation the second you figure out whatever you need to figure out." Liam states firmly.

Louis sniffles and buries his face into Liam's shoulder and nods. "Of course." He says, his voice muffled by Liam's sweatshirt.

The two best friends sit on Louis' bed - his homework long forgotten - for what seems like hours, until they both fall asleep in each other's arms.

\--

Zayn opens his front door and lets him in. His parents aren't home right now, so he feels like right now is a good a time as ever. 

Zayn goes to sit on the couch, the boy slowly trailing behind him. They both sit down simultaneously, the boy keeping a reasonable distance from Zayn. He keeps his eyes trained on the TV sitting on the opposite side of the room, even though nothing is playing on it - he just needs something to look at other than the brooding dark-haired boy next to him.

No one speaks for a long while, but it seems like the silence is louder than any words that are going to be exchanged. Zayn eventually stands up with deep, frustrated sigh, and walks to the kitchen. He comes out seconds later with two glasses of water. One for himself and the other for the boy sitting on his couch.

 _He's being too nice._ The boy thinks. 

But he just nods his thank you instead of saying what he's thinking and shakily picks up the glass of water, bringing it up to his lips and takes a small sip. Once he places it back on the coffee table in front of him, is when Zayn talks. 

"Tell me, what is my take on liars?" He asks.

"You don't like them." The boy says in a small voice.

Zayn hums thoughtfully and cocks his head. "So, tell me. What makes you think that it would be okay to do _just that?"_  

The boy shakes his head frantically, looking up at Zayn. "I- I didn't-"

" _Don't._ Try to make excuses for yourself." Zayn points his finger in his face. "You know damn well what you did."

Hiccuping sobs suddenly start coming out of the boys mouth and he covers his mouth quickly because he knows that Zayn doesn't like that. 

" _Don't fucking cry!"_ He screams, slamming his still full glass of water onto the table. " _No one_ is going to feel sorry for you, you hear me? You think that by telling people our business that it's going to make this shit better? Well, you thought wrong, sweetheart."

"I didn't tell anyone. I swear." The boy sobs, trying to get his words through to Zayn. "You have to believe me." He says desperately. 

"And why the hell would I do that, huh? As many times as you've lied to me, you think that this time is going to be any different?" 

"I've never lied to you." He yells. He puts his head down and starts sobbing into his hands. He's getting tired of Zayn never believing him when he says that he's not lying, and never has lied to him.

But he doesn't have time to finish his thoughts before he's being yanked up by his hair until he's at eye level with Zayn.

"You think you can yell at me now, huh?" He growls. "You think that you're all big and mighty - think that you can stand up to me, now? Well, news flash, honey - you're wrong."

The boy isn't even listening to Zayn's words at this moment. Instead, he's focused solely on the searing pain coming from his head from where Zayn is gripping onto his hair. He's sobbing even harder now, scratching at Zayn's hands as hard as he can - trying whatever he can to get him to let go, but nothing seems to stop him. Instead he just laughs in his face.

"God." He laughs bitterly, shaking his head. "You're fucking pathetic." He growls before throwing the boy to the ground as hard as he can. His head bounces off the ground as he hits the floor and before he can process what's happening there's a heavy black boot connecting with his stomach and he swears he can hear his ribs crack.

He screams out in pain and starts begging Zayn to _please just stop it hurts please I'm sorry._

The pain eventually stops and he hears Zayn's heavy boots walking away from him. "I'll be in my room when you're finished." And then the sound of a bedroom door slamming echoes through the now quiet house.

Louis is left lying in the middle of his boyfriends living room floor, clutching his stomach - the pain in his bones unbearable - as he tries his hardest to catch his breath.

\--


	6. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if this chapter seems really choppy and all over the place.

Louis wakes up and instantly clutches his side and groans. At first, he doesn't have a clue as to why his side is hurting, but then he turns his head to the left and sees Zayn sleeping soundly next to him and it all makes sense.

It's then that he realizes that his head hurts as well, along with his neck. He groans loudly once again and slowly rolls his neck - trying to pull some of the tension out of it. It seems to work a little bit.

Zayn stirs next to Louis, and he looks over to see his boyfriend slowly blinking his eyes open. He takes a deep breath and then abruptly gets out of his bed. And as he exits the room, Louis can't help but trail his eyes up and down Zayn's sculpted back. He comes back a couple of minutes later with a glass of water, a bottle of what Louis guesses is pain-killers, and an ice pack.

Louis slowly sits up as Zayn hands him the cup of water and opens the pill bottle, shaking out two medium sized pills. He waits silently as Louis washes them both down with the water, and then hands him the ice pack. "For your ribs." He says quietly.

Louis takes the ice pack from him and pulls up his t-shirt, placing it against the visible bruise on his side. He nods a thank you to Zayn as he climbs back into his bed.

"Where's my phone?" He asks, when he sees that it's not sitting on the bedside table, where it usually is, his voice hoarse.

Zayn furrows his eyebrows in thought. "I think it's still downstairs, I'll go get it." He starts getting out of bed again, but Louis reaches his arm out to the side and stops him.

"It's fine," he shakes his head. "I don't need it."

Zayn nods awkwardly and settles back down into the bed. He finds a sudden interest in his fingernails and starts picking at them - a nervous habit that Louis isn't unaware of. He always gets like this whenever he knows that he's hurt Louis in some sort of way - physically or emotionally. It always starts with this - the awkward, tense, silence - then the apologies start coming, then everything goes back to normal.

Until the next time - and there's _always_ a next time, no matter how many times Louis tries to tell himself that there's not going to be. Then the cycle starts all over again.

Three years. That's how long this has been going on. And Louis is the only one to blame for that. He's to blame, because he's too much of a coward to do anything about it. He knows that their relationship is unhealthy and wrong, but he's not strong enough to get up and leave Zayn - he doesn't have the heart. Don't get him wrong, he's thought about it before but he's never actually followed through with it. He's in too deep.

He doesn't know what he's done to deserve all of this - all he's given Zayn is love and affection. He's given him everything he's asked for in the world, and more. But apparently it's not enough.

He doesn't know what happened with them. They used to be so happy - that couple that you would see walking down the street and point at them and say _I want that_.

It didn't used to matter what they did together - as long as they were with each other, they were happy. But things have changed so much. Now, sometimes, when Louis comes over just because he simply wants to see his boyfriend, Zayn completely ignores his presence - as if Louis isn't even there. He pretends that Louis doesn't exist at school - whenever the subject of Louis comes up in a conversation between Zayn and his friends he just brushes it off, as if Louis means nothing to him.

Louis acts like it doesn't bother him but it does, it really does. Because he _loves_ Zayn. _So much_.

He's convinced himself that what he and Zayn have is real. That everything that Zayn does, and has ever done, is simply just an accident.

He knows it's not. But, he stays anyways.

"Have you taken your meds?" Louis asks in a quiet voice.

Zayn doesn't give him an answer and Louis takes that as a definite _no_.

"Go take them." Louis says quietly but sternly.

"Louis, I just woke up." Zayn says exasperatedly.

"And the doctor said that you need to take them first thing when you wake up. Now, go take them, please."

"Louis-" Zayn tries to make an excuse for himself again.

"Do I need to remind you what happens when you don't take them?" Louis snaps. His hands reach down to grab the hem of his shirt but he's stopped short. Zayn has his wrists held in a tight grip and is looking at him with a pleading expression as if he's saying _no please don't._

Louis continues to look him - his expression not wavering - until Zayn slowly lets go of his wrists and gets out of his bed once again. He walks out of the bedroom and makes his way down the stairs and Louis keeps an eye on him until he's out of eyesight. He relaxes back into the warmth of the blankets and pillows surrounding him, still nursing his side with the ice pack.

\--

Harry drops his pencil down onto the desk and shoots his hand up in the air when he gets the sudden urge to use the bathroom. The teacher is typing away at the computer, not paying any attention to what's going on around him.

Harry gets tired of waiting for the teacher to notice him and gets up and walks to the front of the classroom. He looks up once Harry approaches his desk and gives him an expectant look.

"Can I use the restroom, please?" Harry asks politely.

The teacher nods in a silent _yes_ and gestures to the door. Harry walks out of the classroom and down the hall and makes his way to the bathroom.

He opens the door and the one and only Louis is standing in front of the mirror. All thoughts of going to the bathroom fly out the window and Harry thinks _this is my chance to finally talk to him_. He goes to stand next to Louis, opens his mouth to start apologizing but is stopped short.

Louis is looking at him with a panicked expression, half of his face covered with what looks like foundation. Harry tilts his head to the side and furrows his eyebrows in confusion, wondering _why in the hell is he putting on makeup?_ But then something catches his eye. _Another_ bruise, but on the opposite side of Louis' face, the same exact size as the one that Harry'd seen a couple of weeks back.

"What happened?" He gasps.

Louis just turns back to face the mirror, grabbing the makeup brush and foundation and quickly stuffing it into his backpack, not bothering to zip it up. He turns around and starts stomping towards the door.

"Louis, what happened?" He hears Harry's concerned voice say from behind him.

He whirls around and walks up to Harry, shoving him back as hard as he can. "Why does it matter to you, huh? Why the _fuck_ does it matter?" He yells, shoving him again. "You made it perfectly clear that you _don't care_ , Harry." He starts crying.

"Louis, I-"

" _Don't._ " Louis holds up a finger, his voice wavering. "Just leave me alone." He turns around and walks to the door but runs into someone making their way in. Louis stumbles back and is caught by two tan hands holding onto his hips. He smells the familiar strong cologne and looks up to see Zayn staring down at him. He blinks in surprise and opens his mouth to say _thank you_ or _hi_ or something.

"Watch where you're going." Zayn sneers.

Louis' face visibly falls and he looks away and nods. He feels a new wave of tears coming on, so he lightly pushes away from Zayn and walks out of the bathroom.

After he leaves Harry turns to Zayn, who is fixing his hair in the mirror. "He- do you know what happened to him?" He asks, having seen him and Louis interacting a couple of times during school.

Zayn turns to him with raised eyebrows and chuckles. He turns back to the mirror. "Let's just say that the little bitch got what he deserved." He gives a small smile to Harry and with that, he walks out of the bathroom.

\--

After the bell for the end of class rings, Harry goes to find the one person who is closest to Louis, the one person he feels has all of the answers - Liam. Even though he and Liam aren't on good terms and Harry is probably the last person that he wants to talk to, Harry needs to know what is happening. He needs answers.

He finds him standing with Niall at the end of the hallway, both of them leaning against the lockers, staring at each other with heart eyes - the people around them nonexistent. Harry approaches them quietly and taps Liam carefully on the shoulder, not wanting him to lash out again. He turns his head with a smile but it instantly vanishes when he sees it's Harry. He grabs Niall by the elbow and begins to pull him away but Harry quickly moves to block their path.

"I need your help." He says pleadingly.

"You're not getting anything from me." Liam firmly states and tries to push past Harry, but he stops them again.

"C'mon, Liam. He's your best friend, I know that you know what's wrong with him. Just please, help me out here."

Liam rolls his eyes. "I don't know anything."

"Liam, you-"

"I'm being serious." He shakes his head and sighs. "He hasn't told me anything. He hasn't told _anyone_ anything as far as I know."

"But he's getting hurt." Harry says exasperatedly. "Liam, you need to tell someone what's happening to him. Even if you don't know every single detail, you at least know that _something_ is going on."

"All he's told me is that he doesn't want anybody knowing. He said that he's going to fix it, so I just..." He trails off, shrugging.

"That's what everybody says. And then they always end up getting hurt even more. Or worse, _killed_."

Liam shakes his head frantically. "No. I'm not going to talk to you about this right now. Or anytime, for that matter." He starts to walk away, pulling Niall with him.

"Your best friend is in serious danger and you don't even care?" Harry asks in disbelief. Liam ignores him. "Liam. _Liam!_ " He shouts down the hallway to no avail. " _Fuck!_ " He kicks the locker closest to him as hard as he can and exits the school, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg.

\--

As soon as Louis runs out of the bathroom after his encounter with both Harry and Zayn, he heads for the nearest exit. There are hot tears rushing down his face and he doesn't have a clue why, because he should have _known_  that Zayn was going to act like that. But it doesn't change the fact that it still hurts like  _hell._ Only half of his face is covered with the makeup that he'd stolen from his sister's bedroom before he left for school this morning, and he definitely can't go back into the bathroom, in fears of running into Zayn or Harry again. His only other option is to go home, and shut himself away in his room like he always does - ignoring the pleading of his sister on the other side of his door telling him to  _please come out Louis talk to me I'm only trying to help you -_ because he already knows what she's going to say, and he doesn't need to hear everything that he already knows. 

_You need to leave him._

_He's dangerous._

_He's just going to keep hurting you._

_He could kill you._

_You don't deserve to be treated like this._

And Louis knows, trust him, he  _knows_ that every single word that comes out of her mouth is true. But for some reason, he keeps falling for those same hazel eyes, that same chiseled jaw, that same perfect smile, all over again. And Zayn keeps taking advantage of him because he knows that he has Louis wrapped around his finger. 

In the middle of Louis' train of thought, he's startled by someone stopping him abruptly in the middle of the hallway. He mumbles out a quick apology, not taking the time to look at who it is. The person clutches on to the fabric of his shirt and yanks him back, causing his open backpack to fall from where it was slung over his shoulder, and all of his books to scatter around the hall - he's surprised they're still in good condition, seeing as many times he's dropped them just this year. He curses under his breath and bends down to pick them up.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Lou. I didn't mean for you to drop everything." Louis hears a voice chuckle lightly from in front of him. He looks up to see that it's Cher, kneeling down on the floor to help Louis with his books.

"Y-you really don't have to do that." Louis says, trying to stop her.

"This was my fault. Trust m-" Cher cuts herself off with a sharp gasp. Louis suddenly feels a small hand lightly stroke his cheek. He jerks away from the touch, avoiding eye contact with Cher.

"Oh, sweetheart." She hesitantly reaches out again to touch his cheek again. At the touch, instead of shying away from it, he drops all of the books that he'd gathered in his arms back onto the floor, and lets his head fall into his hands. Within seconds, there are arms wrapping around his body and a soothing voice whispering in his ear that _it's okay shh_. 

After several minutes she asks Louis the question he's been dreading. "Who did this to you?"

Louis contemplates telling her, thinking that maybe if he tells _someone_ it'll make him feel better. But he decides against it. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?" She asks patiently.

"I just can't." Louis says, pushing away from her. He quickly picks up all of his books and stuffs them into his backpack, remembering to zip it this time. He throws it over his shoulder and is about to stand up when two hands are cupping his face. He looks into Cher's eyes with a blank expression - the same expression he wears all the time, in fears of giving everything away.

"I promise I won't tell anyone."

Louis looks down and mumbles something under his breath. Hoping that she heard him, so he doesn't have to say it again. But, since when do things go his way? "What was that?" Cher asks.

"Zayn." He says a little bit louder.

Cher's eyes widen. "Zayn? Why would he do this to you?"

"I've already said to much." Louis says, taking his face out of her hands and standing up. "I'm sorry." He breathes, and turns and sprints out of the school just as the bell for the end of class rings.


	7. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has way too much dialogue. But, it's long. So here you go.

"Mr. Malik, please go down to the counseling office."

Zayn looks up from his sketchbook with a look of confusion written on his face, but gathers his art supplies anyways and puts them back into their respective spots around the classroom. He closes his sketchbook and carefully places it into his backpack before getting up from his table, waving a goodbye to his art teacher. He makes his way to the counseling office and he can't think of any reason why he would be needed by his counselor but goes down anyways.

Once he gets there he goes all the way back to his counselors office and knocks on the door. "Come in." He hears, and opens the door.

His counselor is sitting at her desk, awaiting Zayn's entrance. "You wanted to see me, Mrs. Clarke?" He asks.

"Yes. Please, take a seat." She gestures to a chair in front of her desk, and he sits down.

She takes a deep breath before speaking. "Mr. Malik, you know that we don't tolerate violence here at Doncaster Prep."

"Yes, I know that." Zayn nods.

"Then you should know that if any physical harm comes to a student from another student, you will be expelled immediately." She says sternly.

"Again, yes. I understand the rules. Have you forgotten that I've been attending this school for almost four years now?" Zayn chuckles lightly.

"This is no laughing matter, Zayn. Because, according to some other students, you've been causing physical harm to another student at this school."

Zayn clenches his jaw and the first name that goes through his head is _Louis_. He chuckles nervously. "I can promise you that it's not true. I don't have any conflict whatsoever with any of my peers."

"That may be true. But, according to your files I have right here in front of me, you're required by your physician to take Prozac, Zoloft, and Celexa - all medications to help with depression, anxiety, and panic disorder. So, whether or not you have conflict with anybody at this school, it is normal for you to lash out at anyone that you might feel threatened by." Mrs. Clarke says calmly. " _So_ , I'm going to ask you again. Have you caused physical harm to anybody here at Doncaster Prep?"

"I-" Zayn starts to deny, but his counselor looks at him pointedly. "Yes." He sighs.

"Do you want to take this time I'm giving you to explain yourself, or should I report this right now?" She asks, her hands flying to her keyboard on her desk.

" _No!_ No, I can explain. Please." She gestures for him to continue. "Like you said, I- I lash out at anybody I feel threatened by, I couldn't control it. He just- he got in my way, and before I knew it, I was hitting him." Zayn shrugs. "I'm so sorry. It won't happen again, ma'am. I promise."

Mrs. Clarke doesn't say anything for several minutes, just staring at Zayn with a contemplating look. "You seem to be one of this school's top students. And we've never had any problems with you before. I really shouldn't do this, Mr. Malik, but I'm letting you off with a warning." Zayn lets out a sigh of relief. " _But._ If I see you in here again, I will not hesitate to have you expelled. Do you understand?" 

"Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you."

"I just have one more question before you go back to class. Have you taken all of your required medication today?"

 _No._ "Yes." Zayn nods. 

"Then I guess that's all. Have a good day, Mr. Malik."

"You, too. Thank you." Zayn smiles and exits the office. He pulls out his cellphone once he gets out into the hallway and opens up a new text. 

_meet me outside of the bathroom. i want to see u :)_

He sends it and pockets his phone. He gets to the bathroom and leans against the wall outside of the door and waits, ignoring any looks he gets by other students passing by. To his relief, no boys decide that they need to use the bathroom at this time. 

He starts getting impatient and begins to pull his phone back out of his pocket to send another text when he hears footsteps approaching. Louis is smiling brightly at him, walking with a bounce in his step, but his face falls when he sees that Zayn is, in fact, not smiling back at him. Not even a little.

"I thought..." Louis says quietly.

Zayn chuckles. "You thought wrong, sweetheart." He grabs Louis' wrist and yanks him into the bathroom, closing the door and locking it behind them.

\--

Harry woke up late, too late, for school this morning. He really needs to go to bed earlier at night. He's walking to the office to get a tardy slip for class when he hears someone scream. He thinks nothing of it, probably just some obnoxious student inside of a classroom. He hears something else again and thinks  _they really need to make these doors soundproof._ Right as he passes by the bathroom he hears the sound of someone crying, clear as day. He puts his ear up to the door - not wanting to intrude, but wanting to hear what's happening. 

" _No no no no, please don't. I'm sorry. I promise I didn't say anything. Please, Zayn, you have to believe me."_ An all too familiar voice begs.

Harry furrows his eyebrows in confusion, but continues listening. What Harry hears next causes something in him to snap. 

" _Zayn.. Zayn, no please! I-"_ There's a loud thud, something slamming into a bathroom stall, and the sound of glass breaking. 

Harry goes to push the bathroom door open but it won't budge. He tries throwing his shoulder against the door, but it doesn't work. He kicks the door as hard as he can, with the foot that he didn't hurt kicking a locker the other day. One, two, three times before the door swings open. He runs in to see Louis on the ground in a fetal position, crying, and Zayn going in for, what Harry assumes is, another kick to his ribs.

Harry runs to stand in front of Zayn before his boot can connect with Louis' body and punches him, making him fall back into the wall unconscious. He turns around and gets down to the ground to where Louis is. "Are you okay?"

Louis lets out a sob and shakes his head slightly. His bottom lip is split open, his teeth bloody. The side of his hair is matted down with fresh blood from where Zayn obviously smashed his head into the mirror, if the broken glass on the ground is anything to go by.

"Can you stand up?"

"I don't know." Louis sobs. "It hurts, so bad."

"Okay, well we need to get you out of here. C'mon, I'll help you."

Louis sniffles and nods. He lets go of his side and slowly tries to push himself off of the ground. When he gets to his knees, Harry grabs him from under the armpits to help him get up the rest of the way. He tries to stand on both of his feet and ends up falling forward and crying out in pain. He'd twisted his ankle when he tried fighting Zayn off before he pushed him into the mirror. 

"I can't walk. My foot." Louis whimpers.

"Shit." Harry curses. "Okay, c'mere." He puts his arm out and puts it around Louis' shoulders to keep the weight off of his foot, and helps him walk. He takes one last look at Zayn and walks himself and Louis out of the bathroom. 

"Where are we going?" 

"We need to get you to the nurse or something." Harry explains. 

"No, no we can't." Louis starts panicking.

"Why not?"

"I just- I can't. Just take me home or something. Anything. I don't want to be here anymore."

"Well, don't we need to get your backpack or something?" Harry questions. 

"I'll just have Liam grab it for me. He was in my last class. Just please take me home." Louis pleads. 

Harry does what he says and takes him to the school parking lot. "You have a car, right? Otherwise, we're walking, and I don't think you'd want to."

"Yeah, yeah. Erm, it's over there." Louis points across the lot. "The black one." 

They eventually approach an expensive - like everything else at this school - car. Harry notices right away that it's a 2012 Aston Martin Vanquish, also known as the car that Harry's been wanting for almost a year now. Harry's about to ask him about it, but remembers that him and Louis aren't exactly on the best terms - Harry still hasn't apologized, and Louis still hates him. Instead, he just silently takes the car keys from Louis and unlocks the car. He carefully helps Louis get into the passengers seat of the car, seeing as he's in absolutely no condition right now to be driving. He closes the door and jogs around to the drivers side - thankfully, even though he doesn't have a car, he still knows how to drive one. He turns the engine over and drives off of the school premises. 

Once they get to Louis' house - after Harry having to keep Louis awake enough to give him directions - he helps Louis out of the car and walks him up to the front door. They go up the stairs - with much difficulty - and finally make it to Louis' room. Harry takes him to his bed, propping him up in a comfortable position against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed. 

"Stay right there, don't fall asleep. I'm going to go find something to clean you up with." Harry turns to walk out of the room. 

"I don't need your help. In fact, I don't  _want_ your help. So, you can leave." Louis mumbles from behind him. 

"You actually think you're capable of taking care of yourself right now?" Louis doesn't respond. "That's what I thought. Just let me help you, and you won't hear from me ever again." Harry doesn't wait for an answer, just walks out of the room and goes to get a wet washcloth, a glass of water, and a first aid kit. After he finds everything, he goes to find Louis with his head lolled to the side with his eyes closed. Harry walks over and pats him on the cheek a couple of times, "Hey. Wake up. You can't fall asleep - your head."

Louis groans in annoyance, but opens his eyes anyways. 

"Okay, drink this." Louis winces as he brings to cup up to his mouth - forgetting all about his split lip. He slowly drinks the water and gives it back to Harry when he's finished. Harry sets the cup on the bedside table and takes the wet washcloth and starts wiping Louis face down. When his face is clear of blood, he throws the washcloth into the hamper across the room and reaches out to lightly touch the side of Louis' head. Louis retracts quickly in pain, letting out a quiet  _fuck_ under his breath. 

Harry sighs. "You need to take a shower or something, wash the blood out of your hair."

"In case you haven't noticed, I can't walk. Or even stand, for that matter. How am I going to take a shower?" Louis rolls his eyes.

"Okay, well you need to do something about that." Harry gestures to Louis' hair. "It's kind of grossing me out." 

Louis narrows his eyes. "Well, I'm sorry I just got the shit beat out of me." He snaps. "I promise it won't happen again, just for you."

"Louis, you know I didn't mean it like that." 

"Do I?" Louis scoffs and shakes his head. "I think you just need to leave."

"I'm not leaving you like this by yourself." 

"My sister will be home in a couple of hours. She can just take care of me then. Until then.. You know where the door is."

Harry just stares at Louis - watches him as he silently plays with fingers. He hesitantly rests one of his hands on top of Louis'. "Louis... I know you're not okay."

"I said I'm fine, Harry." Louis pulls his hands away from Harry's warm one. 

Harry pulls his hand back as well, but doesn't make a move to leave. "What I said the other day. I didn't mean it." He whispers. "Louis,  _I'm sorry._ The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you." 

Louis shakes his head as his bottom lip starts trembling. 

"I- just talk to me. Tell me what's going on. I just want to help you." Harry pleads.

"I can't." Louis whimpers. "You shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" Harry asks, knowing that Louis' close to breaking and telling him.

"Because." Louis just sobs. "I just can't." Tears suddenly start falling from his eyes, he brings his knees up to his chest the best that he can without hurting his side even more, and starts rocking back and forth, mumbling something under his breath. 

"Louis..." Harry breathes, causing Louis to cry harder. He scoots closer to him and wraps his arms carefully around his small body. "Shh, it's okay." Harry soothes him. "Hey, you're okay. It's okay."

" _No it's not!_ " Louis wails into Harry's chest. 

"Calm down, calm down. I've got you, it's okay."

Louis' body continues to wrack with sobs as he cries into Harry's arms. About ten minutes later, his crying subsides and turns into hiccups and sniffles. "I'm s-sorry."

"You have no reason to be apologizing." Harry says softly, rubbing Louis' back. Louis nods, still hiccuping. "Do you want to talk about it?" Harry asks. Louis shakes his head in response. "Okay, that's fine." He soothes, "Whenever you're ready."

Louis nods and buries his face into Harry's shoulder. Harry thinks about kissing the top of his head, but decides against it - Louis hasn't exactly forgiven him yet. He just settles for resting his chin on top of Louis' head. He knows that Louis is still shaken up, so he continues to rock the both of them back and forth, in hopes of calming him down. It seems to work because his body stops shaking and his breathing eventually evens out. Harry thinks he falls asleep, because he gets so quiet. But then he speaks up. 

"He told me he'd wanted to see me. To meet him outside of the bathroom." Harry lifts his chin from Louis' head and looks down to get a better look at him. Louis removes his head from Harry's shoulder and looks down at his lap, finding something to distract himself with. "And I was stupid, and I went. I should've known that something was up. I got there, and he looked so  _angry._ I didn't know what I had done, and he didn't tell me. He just pulled me into the bathroom with him and locked the door behind him. He told me that if I made any sound that it would just make it worse for me. He just started hitting me and he  _wouldn't stop._ He pulled my hair and I couldn't help it - I screamed. He just- I started apologizing and saying whatever I could to get him to stop, but he didn't. It only just made him angrier. I was stupid and tried to make a run for it, but he pulled me back and pushed me into one of the bathroom stalls. He grabbed my hair again and slammed the side of my head into the mirror and threw me on the floor. He kicked me in my stomach, and was about to do it again. And that's when you walked in." He finishes and Harry has no idea what to say to him. Louis' not even crying, it's like he cried himself out and he doesn't have anything left in him. 

"That never should have happened." Harry finally says. "You didn't deserve for this to happen to you."

"Yes, I did. I made a mistake and I had to pay for the consequences. That's how it works."

"Well, it shouldn't. No one should ever be treated like that." Harry says, getting frustrated. 

"Except for me. I deserved it."

Harry stands up from the bed. "Will you stop talking like that?" He yells in disbelief. 

"It's true." Louis whispers.

"No, it's not!" Harry continues to yell. Louis' head snaps up to look at him and flinches back. " _No one_ should be treated like that. I don't care what you did, I don't care who you are. You shouldn't get your ass beat because of some lousy mistake." Louis just sits there on his bed, staring at Harry. "You know what? Fine. If you won't take care of this, I will." Harry growls, walking towards the bedroom door. 

"Wait, no no no. What are you doing?" Louis asks frantically.

Harry turns around to face him. "I'm going to put that asshold in his place, that's what I'm doing." He turns back around and grabs onto the doorknob. 

"No, stop. Please." Louis begs.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go beat his ass right now?" 

"Because. I just- I don't know, but please don't do this. Just- come here. Sit back down." 

Harry stands there with his jaw clenched, looking at him. He can see in his eyes that he really doesn't want him to go. "Fine." Harry says in defeat. He starts to go sit down but he steps on something sharp on the floor. " _Ow!_ " He exclaims. "Ah, what the hell was that?"  _  
_

Louis peeks over the edge of the bed to see that Harry's foot is bleeding. "Shit. Come here, sit down." He orders, and grabs the first aid kit that Harry had brought in earlier, but didn't use.

But Harry doesn't sit down right away. He bends down to pick up the object that he had stepped on and inspects it. He soon figures out that the object is a blade of some sort - a razor blade. 

"Harry." Louis sighs impatiently. "You're going to bleed all over my floor. Come here so I can wrap it up." Harry ignores him and continues to look at the blade. 

"What is this?" He mumbles. 

"What is what?" Louis looks at him confused. 

"This." Harry walks over to him and puts his hand in front of Louis' face to show him what he's holding. 

"I- where did you get that from?" 

"The floor. It's what I stepped on. Now answer the question, what is this?"

"I don't know." Louis mutters, avoiding eye contact with Harry. "Get on the bed, I need to look at your foot." 

"My foot is  _fine,_ Louis. It's just a small cut, nothing I can't handle." He puts his fingers beneath Louis' chin and lifts his head up to get him to look him in the eyes. "Why was this in your room?" 

"I told you I don't know, would you just leave me alone?!" Louis yells, pulling at his hair. "Why are you asking me all of these questions? I haven't done anything!" He drops his head to his knees, hands still gripping his hair, and lets out a frustrated scream. His body starts to shake slightly. 

"Louis." Harry says softly. He reaches out to touch Louis' shoulder, but his head snaps up and he scrambles back into the corner of his bed. 

"No, no! I'm sorry. I'm sorry for yelling at you. I didn't mean to." Louis cries. The last four words he says is what breaks Harry's heart. " _Please don't hurt me!"_

Louis honestly believes that Harry is going to hurt him. Something in Louis' head told him that Harry was going to get mad just because he'd yelled at him. He believes that Harry was going to lash out and hit him. Harry may have only spoken to the kid a couple of times, and they might not have been under good circumstances, but that didn't stop Harry from caring about him. And nowhere in Harry's mind would he ever think about hurting him. 

Louis wraps his arms around his knees and rests his forehead on his arms - as if he's trying to hide from Harry as much as possible, while he started to cry. Harry cautiously scoots closer to him - not wanting him to freak out again. "I'm not going to hurt you." He says. "Hey, please look at me." Louis shakes his head and continues to cry. "I'm not mad at you, I promise." 

Louis' crying stops abruptly and he looks up at Harry with red rimmed eyes. "You're not?" He asks in a small voice. 

Harry doesn't answer him, just reaches his hand out for Louis' wrist. "Don't." Louis whimpers. 

Harry's hand freezes. "Please?" Louis doesn't say anything, so Harry slowly moves his hand forward and eventually gets ahold of Louis' wrist. Harry rolls up the sleeves of Louis' jacket and looks at it and sees that there's nothing there. He does the same with the other and, again, nothing. Harry looks up to him and narrows his eyes. Louis just looks back with a blank expression on his face, and  _jesus his moods change fast._ Harry thinks for a couple of minutes, and then it hits him. He thinks back to the other day when he'd ran into Louis in the bathroom, and reaches behind him to grab the wet cloth he'd used earlier. He finds a spot on the cloth that doesn't have blood on it and brings it up to Louis' wrists and runs it up both of his arms. And there they are. 

Cuts going all the way up his arm. So many thoughts are running through Harry's head, so many questions. But one question in particular stands out above the rest. 

"Why?" Harry asks aloud. Louis just shrugs, staring at the wall behind Harry. "Why would you do this to yourself?" He whispers. Louis continues to stare at the wall. Harry grabs both of his shoulders and lightly shakes him. "Louis, talk to me." He begs. "Just tell me what you're thinking."

Louis doesn't respond, so Harry does the first thing that comes to his mind. He grabs Louis' wrist and starts kissing his cuts, each and every one of them, all the way up to the crook of his elbow. He takes the other arm and does the same thing, and when he looks up, the hand that he isn't holding is covering Louis' mouth. Silent tears streaming down his face. Harry takes Louis' hand away from his mouth and grabs his face in his hands. "Please." Harry whispers. 

Louis' bottom lip starts trembling and he shakes his head. They sit there looking at each other, not saying a word. Until Louis finally breaks the silence. 

"I- I did it because it was the only way to get away from it all. From the pain. It was becoming too much for me, so I did it one day, and I couldn't stop. I needed some sort of release and it was the only thing that could give me that feeling." 

"What? Get away from what?" 

"The abuse." Louis mumbles. 

Harry looks at him sympathetically. "From who?" 

"Zayn." Louis croaks. "But I had to cover them up because he said he's not capable of loving someone with scars all over their body. I had no other choice."

And then everything falls into place. Everything makes sense. 

Louis' in an abusive relationship. 

"No." Harry gasps, scrambling off the bed, away from Louis. "I don't understand. You- what?" Then he snaps. "Why would you let him do that to you?" He yells. "Are you fucking  _stupid?!_ " 

"I'm not stupid." Louis defends himself. 

"How are you not? Why are you still with that kid?"

" _Because I love him!"_ Louis screams. "You have  _no_ right to judge him. You have no right to tell me whether or not I should be with him! He is amazing and he loves me! Everybody makes mistakes, Harry. He's only fucking human. You don't know him like I do - I've been with him for God knows how long, and I have no intentions of leaving him. I love him, Harry!" Louis' voice cracks on the last four words. He starts rocking back and forth, mumbling  _I love him_ over and over again. 

Louis' right. Harry doesn't have any right to judge him, because of the simple fact that he doesn't know him. But he knows enough about him to know that he isn't right for Louis. 

Harry sits down next to Louis and wraps his arms around his shaking frame, while he buries his face into Harry's shoulder. "Don't cry please."

"You don't know him." Louis whispers. 

"I know." Harry soothes. "I never should have said that, I'm sorry."

"You don't know him." Louis repeats. 

"It's okay. Shh, stop crying." 

"I love him." Harry doesn't respond to that because he doesn't believe that Louis loves him. How can you love somebody who hits you?

Louis eventually calms down, and soon enough, the two boys are sitting in the corner of Louis' bed, with Harry's arms wrapped tightly around him. He's whispering sweet nothings into his ear until Louis groans. 

"I'm so tired."

"You can sleep. But you need to wake up in an hour." Harry explains. 

Louis seems to like that idea, because within five minutes, his breathing has evened out and light snores are falling from his mouth.

A half hour passes and Harry hears the front door open. He hears someone call out Louis' name in confusion, and instead of waking him up already, Harry untangles himself from Louis and goes downstairs himself.

He goes into the kitchen to see a grown woman placing her things on top of the dining room table. He clears his throat to make his presence known. 

"Oh!" She exclaims in surprise. "Hello. You're not Louis." She chuckles. 

"Sorry, I'm Harry." He introduces himself. "Louis' upstairs, sleeping."

"I'm Jay, Louis' mum. Are you one of Louis' friends?" 

"Erm, yeah. Sort of."

"Would you like to explain to me why my son is home so early from school?"

"Oh, yeah. He, erm." Harry clears his throat. "Something happened at school, and he really didn't want to be there anymore, so he asked me to drive him home." Harry gives her the simplified version of what happened. 

"Is he okay?" She asks worriedly. 

"No. He isn't, not really." Harry say apologetically. 

Jay's hand flies up to her mouth. "What happened to him?" 

"He- has he told you about anything that's been going on with him? Has he given you any clues? Or have you noticed anything off about him?"

"I mean, he's been really keeping to himself lately. But, I- I just figured he wanted to focus on his last year of school." At the look on Harry's face, Jay's face falls. "What's wrong with him?" 

 _Please don't hate me for this, Louis._ "It seems that your son is in an abusive relationship."

\--

 


	8. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THIS CHAPTER, PLEASE READ IT AGAIN. I took some suggestions from people in the comments and added on to this chapter, so please read it. 
> 
> Very dialogue-y chapter, sorry.

Harry is standing with a group of people he has recently became acquainted with, at lunch, before two small fists are hitting his chest, a voice yelling at him.

" _You bastard!_ " The voice says, and Harry looks down to see that it is in fact Louis who is hitting him. "I trusted you!" He yells, oblivious to the curious onlookers surrounding them. "I told you _everything!_ I trusted you with  _everything_ and you betrayed me!" Louis continues to yell when suddenly two arms are wrapping around his waist and pulling him away. Harry looks up and watches as Liam struggles to calm Louis down, yelling in his ear to just  _look at me._

"No!" Louis protests, struggling against Liam's strong hold, flailing his limbs every which way, trying to break free. "Let go of me! I hate him! _I hate you!_ " He directs the last part at Harry, who is standing still, staring apologetically at Louis. "I _hate_ you!" He starts sobbing. 

"Lou- Louis! Look at me." Liam, who is holding him back, shouts. He loosens his grip around Louis' waist and coaxes him to turn around. Louis is a mess - choking on sobs, eyes bloodshot, tears dripping from his chin, snot starting to run from his nose. "He's not worth it. Come on, let's go get you cleaned up." He whispers, and places a hand on the small of Louis' back and leads him away from the cafeteria, shooting a glare at Harry along the way. 

\--

_"It seems that your son is in an abusive relationship."_

_"I felt that you needed to know."_

_"He's scared."_

_"Seeing the emotional and physical damage that's been done to him."_

_"He's convinced they're in love."_

Harry thinks back to the conversation that he had with Louis' mum two weeks ago, everything that he told her. Telling her anything and everything that she wanted to know - going off of what he knew from the information that he had got from Louis. He knew that it was a bad idea from the get go, to tell her. He knew that every ounce of trust that Louis had put into him that day was long gone. But he  _had_ to. There was no way that Harry was going to keep her in the dark about everything that was happening to her son. If anyone had the right to know, it was Louis' mum. 

But now, Louis hates him. So, was it worth it? Was it worth throwing away a possible friendship? Was it worth giving up Louis' trust? And all Harry can think is,  _yes it was._ Louis' life was in danger, it would have been wrong of Harry not to do anything about it, to not tell anyone what was happening.

Harry had left Louis' house before it was time for Louis to wake up, hoping that maybe Louis would forget all about him ever being there. He didn't hear from, or speak to Louis for two weeks after that. WIth him not being at school, giving himself some time to recover from the incident with Zayn. Harry hadn't expected Louis to be back to school so soon, so when Louis surprise attacked him in the middle of the courtyard that day, you can say that Harry was a bit shocked. 

Zayn got expelled - never to step foot on Doncaster Prep premises ever again. Apparently, one of his classmates got sent to go look for him after he never returned back to class, only to find him in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror, inspecting the swelling that was slowly forming around his eye - that was sure to be different shades of black and blue by the next day. He then got sent back to his counselors office, where he confessed to getting into a fight with someone, causing him to get expelled on the spot. 

And Louis. Well Harry and Louis are all the way back to step one. Louis hating Harry.

Hearing Louis say the words _I hate you_ straight to Harry's face, hurt. Seeing Louis in that state, going from furious to hysterical so quickly, was heart wrenching. It all happened so fast, one second there were fists hitting his chest and screaming in his face, and the next second Liam was pulling Louis away and leading him out of the cafeteria, away from the heavy gazes of the students around them.

Harry walked around for the remainder of the school day, trying to convince himself that he did the right thing. But, did he? Was it worth losing a potential friendship with Louis? Was it worth giving up the possible opportunity to try and persuade Louis to get rid of that asshole of a boyfriend? Part of Harry thinks that yes it was definitely worth it. But the selfish part of him thinks that _maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut._

He's sitting on his bed trying to get some homework done, but failing - he can't focus with all of these thoughts of _LouisLouisLouis_ going through his head. He takes the chance to spring up out of his bed and go downstairs as soon as he hears the familiar sound of his mom walking through the front door. He walks through the kitchen door and takes a seat at one of the stools in front of the island, and waits while his mom puts her keys into the drawer and grabs a glass of water for herself and Harry.

She leans on her elbows on the opposite side of the counter and stares at her son. Before Harry even gets a chance to take a sip of his water, she asks, "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?" He asks confusedly, slowly setting the glass down on the counter.

"You're upset about something."

"No, I'm not." He laughs exasperatedly. "I'm fine."

"Did something happen at school today?" She keeps pressing him.

"Mum." He sighs.

"So, something _did_  happen. Come on, tell me."

Harry sighs again and looks down at his still full glass of water and circles his pointer finger around the rim of the cup. "It's- it's nothing." He shrugs. "Just some... stupid mistake."

Anne looks at him in sympathy. "Well, maybe you'll feel better if you talk about it, hm?"

They sit in silence for a while, Anne waiting patiently as Harry sorts his thoughts. "My friend, he- well, I guess he's not really my _friend_. Just- this guy, he... he's in a really bad situation, I don't really want to go into specifics. But, he told me all about it a couple of weeks ago and I- I don't know, I thought that, you know, _maybe_ it would have made things a little bit better if I told somebody about it - ya know, someone that I felt deserved to know - and the whole thing just kind of backfired on me."

"Well, sweetie," Harry's mum sighs. "Don't you think that maybe it wasn't your place to tell someone? That maybe if he wanted that person to know, he would have told them about it already?" 

"But, I-" Harry tries to reason, but his mum gives him a pointed look. "Yeah, I guess." He sighs. "It doesn't even matter now, though." He says, looking down at his bitten fingernails. "He hates me." 

"You don't know for sure that-"

"He said the words  _I hate you_ straight to my face. Yelled, them actually - in front of everybody." He laughs humorlessly and shakes his head at the memory. "I just thought I was doing the right thing. I guess not."

"Maybe just wait a few more weeks," Anne suggests. "Maybe, by then, he'll realize that you were only trying to help him."

"Yeah, maybe," Harry agrees, trying not to think about the fact that a lot could happen between Louis and Zayn within the span of two weeks. "I'm just going to go upstairs and try and get some more homework done." He drops the subject at hand and stands up from the stool. His mum tells him not to stress over the Louis situation too much, presses a kiss to his cheek, and lets him walk out of the kitchen to go back to his room. 

Harry spends the rest of the night distracting himself with politics and graphing tables, and  _really_ when is any of this stuff going to be helpful to him in the future? The next thing he knows, the clock on his bedside table reads  _1:07 A.M -_ time flies when you're having fun, right? No. He tells himself that he's going to put everything away and go to bed as soon as he finishes this next math problem. His mum finds him not even five minutes later sprawled out on his bed with a graphing calculator in one hand, math textbook wide open on his lap, papers strewn all over the foot of his bed. She quietly and carefully removes all of his school supplies from his bed, grabs a blanket from his closet and drapes it over his long body. She turns off his bedside lamp and leaves the door open just a crack, leaving him to peacefully dream about blue-eyed boys with small hands. _  
_

\--

Louis hasn't been able to look his mom in the eye for the last two weeks. Not ever since the night she came into his room and sat at the foot of his bed, staring at him, but not saying anything. She then began to cry, wrapping him up in her arms unexpectedly and repeating the words  _I didn't know, I'm so sorry_ over and over again. Louis had asked her what was wrong, which only made her cry more. She eventually got herself together and told him that she knew, she knew everything that had been happening to him, and that she was so sorry that she hadn't noticed it herself sooner. When asked where she got her information from she simply stated that  _one of your friends that was here earlier - very nice boy, don't really remember his name though - told me everything, Louis._

\--

Louis walks through the halls of Doncaster Prep with determination, asking anybody and everybody  _have you seen Harry Styles today?_ He eventually gets an answer from one of the football jocks, telling Louis that he saw Harry walking into the cafeteria with a group of friends earlier. He turns away from the boy without another word and makes his way towards the cafeteria. He pushes the double doors open with full force, causing them to swing open and make a loud  _bang_ when they hit the wall - people's eyes slowly starting to drift towards him. He ignores it, though, and scans the room until his gaze lands on just the person he's looking for - laughing animatedly with his friends, like he doesn't have a care in the world. Louis suddenly finds himself running across the room and launching himself at Harry. 

_"You bastard!"_ He yells, shoving him roughly in the chest. He then begins to hit Harry in the chest as hard as he can, hoping that it's hurting Harry just as much as Louis is hurting on the inside right now, because, "I trusted you! I told you  _everything!_ I trusted you with  _everything_ and you betrayed me!" Louis continues yelling, and he  _knows_ that everybody is watching him make a fool of himself right now, but he can't find it in himself to care. All he cares about is the fact that he opened up to Harry and told him things that nobody knows, not even Liam. And Harry went behind his back and told someone, he  _told someone._

Suddenly there are arms going around Louis' waist and pulling him away from Harry. He struggles against them, kicking his legs every which way, pushing down on the hands around him - trying to pry them off of him. "No!" He yells. "Let go of me! I hate him!" He looks Harry straight in the eye and makes sure he's looking right back at him. " _I hate you!_ I  _hate_ you!" He sobs the last three words, going limp in the arms holding him back - giving up on trying to get back to Harry. 

"Look at me." He hears a voice behind him say and the arms around him release their grip and he turns around and sees that it was Liam holding him back. Louis continues sobbing, his whole body trembling, he can feel snot running from his nose - he already knows he looks a wreck. "He's not worth it." Liam whispers. "Come on, let's go get you cleaned up." He places a hand on Louis' shoulder and turns him around, the hand falling down the small of his back to lead him out of the cafeteria. He casts his head down to avoid all of the looks that he knows the other students are giving him.

Liam leads Louis to the bathroom and has him sit himself on top of the counter. Louis swings his legs back and forth as he waits for Liam to grab some paper towels, and tries to get his body to stop shaking from the aftershocks of him crying. Liam walks over to him and wipes his nose and his eyes - the usual process that they go through when Louis shows up to his house at one o'clock in the morning, crying about only God knows what. Louis never explains himself, and Liam never asks any questions - just lets Louis get out whatever emotions he's feeling at the time, right onto Liam's shoulder - and then it's over. They move on, and Liam is left in the dark once again about what is going on in Louis' life.

"What did that asshole do to you, Louis?" Liam murmurs as he's fixing up Louis' hair. 

"Nothing," Louis sighs, not looking Liam in the eye.

"Nothing?" Liam asks in disbelief, taking his hands away from Louis' head. "You're kidding me, right? I have never seen you so angry in all of the years that I've known you, Lou. Something happened."

"Yes, okay.  _Something_ happened." Louis huffs in annoyance. "And I don't want to talk about it." He holds a finger up when Liam opens his mouth to speak. "And I need you to respect that."

"You don't want to talk about it, but you sure as hell were willing to make a fool of yourself in front of almost half of the school." 

Louis scoffs. "You know what? Fuck you, Liam. I don't have to tell you anything." He hops off the counter and makes his way to the door. 

"I'm just worried about you." 

Louis spins around, "Well, don't be." He snaps. "Okay? I can take care of myself, you don't need to know about every single aspect of my life."

Liam just blinks at him. "So much for being best friends, then, yeah?"

"Now, I didn't say that. I just need you to respect my privacy. If I don't want to tell you something, then you need to understand that and back off." 

"Back off?" Liam laughs bitterly. "Okay. Remember that the next time you show up at my front door in the middle of the night  _crying._ Remember that the next time you need help with something. Remember that when you can't  _figure out_ whatever the fuck you have going on. Whenever you think about calling me next, remember that you told me to back off. This is me giving you what you want; this is me backing off." He holds his hands up in surrender and backs away from Louis and out of the bathroom.

"Shit." Louis mutters once Liam walks out. He turns and punches the nearest thing to him, which is the brick wall of the bathroom. He shakes out his hand as pain shoots up his arm and turns and backs up against the wall, sliding all the way down until he's sat on the floor, knees pulled up against his chest. He cradles his hand against his chest and takes deep breaths to will the pain away. But the calming breaths don't do anything to stop the tears from falling from his eyes, at the thought that he possibly just lost his only real best friend.

\--

"What happened to your hand?"

Louis sighs as he struggles to take off his backpack with the one usable hand he has - the other one cradled in a sling given to him by the nurses office, who told him that he'd sprained three of his fingers, along with his wrist. He'd been given an order to go see a doctor and get it checked out, but until then to just keep it held up in the sling.

"I punched a wall." He mutters once he finally gets his backpack off his back.

"And why did you do that?" Zayn asks in disbelief leading Louis to sit on the couch. 

"Because I got angry. That's what you do when you get angry, right? You hit things?" Louis states bitterly. 

Zayn eyes fill with guilt and he looks down at his feet, breaking eye contact with Louis. 

"I'm sorry," Louis apologizes immediately, reaching out with his free hand to grab Zayn's, "that was - wrong. I didn't mean that."

"No no, you're right." Zayn clears his throat when his voice cracks slightly. "I shouldn't do that to you, you don't deserve it. I should be the one apologizing."

Louis stares up at Zayn as he stands in front of him shuffling his feet nervously. He tugs on his hand a little, "Come here." 

Zayn looks at Louis through his lashes and then looks back down, slowly walking forward to place his knees on either side of Louis' body, straddling him. Louis steadies him with a hand on his waist and waits as Zayn gets himself comfortable. They sit in silence for a while, Zayn fiddling with the collar of Louis' shirt and occasionally bringing his hand around to play with the hair on the back of Louis' neck. 

Louis slides his hand from Zayn's hip up to his cheek and strokes it lightly. "I love you." He states quietly.

Zayn drops his hand and closes his eyes and shakes his head. "No, you don't." 

"Yes, I do." Louis cranes his neck to kiss Zayn on the cheek. 

"I hurt you."

Louis purses his lips and takes a deep breath, "I know." He nods.

"I hit you. I hit you and- and I kick you, and I choke you. I do all of these horrible things to you and you-" 

"Hey," Louis stops him when his voice starts getting hysterical, "look at me." Louis holds his hand firmly to Zayn's cheek. "Stop it. I am not angry with you, I am not upset with you, I-"

"But you're disappointed in me." Zayn mumbles sadly. "I tell you every time that I'm going to stop, but I don't. I tell you every time that I'm going to- I'm going to take my medication, and I _don't._ I've let you down too many times to count, Louis, and I _can't handle that._ But, yet you still put up with me."

"And do you wanna know why?" Louis doesn't wait for an answer. "Because _I love you._ I have always loved you. I'm not going to give you some bullshit speech about how every couple has their problems, and how nobody's perfect. But what I will tell you is that we -  _you -_ are going to get through this. Do you know how I know that?" Zayn shakes his head. "Because I believe in you, baby. And I believe that you are strong enough to control this. But it's not just going to go away by itself. You are going to have to start taking your medication.  _Everyday_ when you wake up." He adds in when Zayn begins to protest. "And you're going to have to start communicating with me. Okay? You just lashing out whenever you get angry isn't going to cut it, honey. Especially when you take it out on me. You don't like seeing me get hurt do you?" 

"No, of course not." Zayn shakes his head frantically. "I don't mean to do any of the things I do, I can't control myself. I promise you that I don't mean any of it-"

"Calm down, calm down." Louis soothes him. "So, from now on whenever you get angry or upset, just talk to me, yeah? We'll work it out together. We're going to be okay." 

Zayn bites his lip and nods his head. "Okay." He leans forward and kisses Louis lightly on the lips. "I love you so much, Louis."

Louis smiles against his lips. "I know." 

"Let me go get some ice for your hand or something." Zayn starts to slide off of his boyfriends lap to go to the kitchen, but Louis stops him by wrapping a firm arm around his waist. 

"In a little bit." He smiles. "Right now, I just want to love on my beautiful baby." He succeeds in putting a smile on Zayn's face and pulls him in for another kiss, ending their conversation for the time being. 

\--

"Where the hell have you been? And what happened to your hand?" Jay screeches as soon as Louis walks through the front door at eleven p.m.

Louis ignores her and continues to make his way toward the stairs up to his room, not wanting to let his mum ruin his good mood.

Him and Zayn had a good night tonight. There was no fighting, just a lot of cuddling and kissing. They stayed in and watched a movie and Zayn cooked dinner for the both of them, since Louis can't cook for shit. It was undoubtedly one of the best nights that they've had, just the two of them spending time together. Just like it used to be when they first got together. Louis left as soon as Zayn's mom got home from work, telling his boyfriend that he had to get home before his mum threw a fit.

"Excuse me, mister. I asked you a question."

"Out." Louis mutters, continuing to walk through the living room without stopping.

"You will look at me when I am speaking to you, Louis William." She orders.

"What?" He huffs out in annoyance and twirls around to face his mum.

"Where were you?" Jay crosses her arms and starts tapping her foot impatiently, the typical "angry mom" pose.

"I just  _told_  you. Can I go now?"

"No, you can not. Not until you tell me where you were."

"I was at Zayn's." He snaps. "Are you happy now?" He turns back around and makes it halfway up the stairs before his mum stops him again.

"No, I'm not. I thought I told you to stay away from that boy." She calls after him.

"You can't keep me away from him." Louis laughs. "I'm going to see him, regardless of what you say."

"Not if I have anything to do with it. I will not allow you to associate yourself with someone who is putting your life in danger." Jay counters.

_"Associate."_  Louis chuckles under his breath. "He's my fucking boyfriend, I'll see him whenever the hell I want. Stop being so uptight about everything."

"You need to watch your mouth when you're speaking to me, Louis, I am your mother." Jay snaps. "I'm not being uptight about anything, this boy is hurting you."

"That  _boy_  is my boyfriend.  _I_  will decide whether or not I want to be with him, I can take care of myself, mum."

"Apparently not, considering you've let this go on for God knows how long. I didn't raise you to be a coward. I didn't raise you to let people push you around and walk all over you."

"He doesn't walk all over me!" Louis yells, defending Zayn. "He  _loves_  me."

A door opens somewhere upstairs and they both look up to see Lottie peeking over the railing of the staircase. She looks nervously in between the two of them, taking in their angry faces.

"Go back to sleep, sweetheart." Jay says softly, her tone changing drastically from the one she was just using with Louis. She doesn't miss the way that Louis visibly flinches at the term of endearment that she uses with his little sister, and puts it away into the back of her mind for later when they're not having this argument.

Lottie eventually goes back into her bedroom and closes the door behind her, but not before sending Louis a pleading look. He ignores it and turns his focus back to his mum, her expression going back to the angry one it was just two minutes ago.

"You call that love?" Jay laughs sadly, lowering her voice slightly so Lottie doesn't begin to worry again and shakes her head. "That's not love, Louis. That's  _hate._ "

Louis scoffs. "Oh, like you know the first thing about love. That's why my dad left you before I was even fucking born!" He yells, not taking the hint that his mum wants them to be quieter. "He didn't fucking love you, he just wanted a piece of ass and left  _as soon_  as he got what he wanted."

Louis stumbles back and grabs the side of his face as soon as his mum's hand strikes it. He immediatly feels tears trying to make their way out of his eyes. He stares at her in shock as they stand in dead silence, because his mum has never put her hands on him, not even when him and Lottie were little.

"You will not speak to me that way, young man. Do you understand me?" His mum speaks lowly, getting up in his face and pointing a finger at him.

" _Fuck you_." Louis spits. He pushes past her and stomps towards the coffee table in the middle of the living room and grabs his car keys from where he threw them when he first walked in the house.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jay yells behind him.

"Don't fucking worry about it." He yells back, trying his hardest to keep the shakiness out of his voice. He yanks the door open and slams it closed behind him and runs to his car. He begins to put his keys into the ignition to start it up but his movements falter when he realizes that the place he was going to, he's not welcome at anymore. The one person who was always there for him for everything, isn't there anymore, and it's all because of Louis' selfishness.

He sits and thinks for a couple of minutes and then pushes his keys into the ignition and starts up the car, pulling out of the driveway and speeding off down the road straight back to Zayn's house, tears blurring his vision the whole way there.

\--

Niall and Liam are laying on Niall's bed, Liam's head in his lap with Niall's fingers running through his short hair. They were studying for their big english test tomorrow but got distracted and decided to just put the studying off for later.

For the past month or so, the two boys have had something that they don't really know what to call. They're not boyfriends, neither of them have had enough courage to ask the other one out, so they've been stuck in this weird in between stage of dating and not dating for the longest time. It all started so suddenly, neither of them really knowing what the other one was feeling at the time, but when the first move was finally made, no one protested, they just let it happen.

They haven't really taken the time to talk about what happened, to talk about their feelings for one another. They're just letting whatever happens, happen.

"What're you thinking about?" Niall asks softly, not stopping the movements of his hand in Liam's hair. He has a weird obsession with Liam's hair - loves the way it's not too short and not too long, just perfect - and takes every chance he gets to put his hands on it.

"Nothing." Liam shakes his head and sighs, reaching out to his left side and feeling around for his phone. His face falls when he sees that the lock screen is in fact blank, no missed calls or texts from anybody.

"The way you keep checking your phone every five minutes is telling me something different." Niall laughs. "What is it?"

"I'm just worried." Liam shrugs.

Niall's laughing dies down and he nods his head in understanding. "About Louis?"

Liam pushes his head up off of Niall's lap and scoots over to the foot of the bed, grabbing a pillow along the way and hugging it to his chest. "I just- why won't he tell me what's wrong with him?" He asks, desperation lacing his voice. "Can he not trust me? Is that it?"

Niall scoots over to where Liam is and pulls him into his side, Liam leaning his head on Niall's shoulder. "You're his best friend, Li. That kid trusts you with his life, I'm sure."

"Then why is he keeping things from me?"

"Maybe he's just scared, babe." Niall shrugs.

Liam blushes and buries his face into Niall's neck, not commenting on the endearment. "Of what?" He asks sadly.

"Maybe that you'll judge him. I mean, if it's something so big that he's not telling you, there has to be a pretty good reason why. You just have to give him time, let him open up to you when he's ready. The more you pressure him about it, the more he's just going keep it inside of him."

"I wish I would've known that sooner." Liam mutters.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Liam sighs, "me and Louis got into a fight earlier. About him not telling me. I got angry and I got jealous that he told someone, and that that someone wasn't  _me_. And I may have said some things that I didn't mean."

"Like what?"

Liam hesitates. "Like that I wasn't there for him anymore. That the next time he needed help with something or needed somebody to talk to, not to call me. I told him that he couldn't come over anymore when he needed someone, I- I basically just told him that I didn't want anything to do with him anymore."

"Oh, Li."

"I know, I screwed up. But it doesn't even matter anymore, I'm pretty sure he hates me now."

"He doesn't hate you." Niall argues, tightening his grip slightly around Liam's waist. "I don't think he could ever hate you. You guys have been best friends since, what? Kindergarten? Maybe even before that?" Liam nods. "He's not going to end up hating you over one stupid fight, he's not going to end it just like that. Now, I know Louis, he can hold a pretty big grudge. But I'm sure that if you just talk to him about it, the whole thing will blow over."

"You think so?" Liam asks in a small voice, looking up at Niall.

"I  _know_  so." Niall smiles, pressing a light kiss to the tip of Liam's nose, then to his lips.

\--

Liam is walking fast down the hallways of the school when he is yanked by his shirt into an empty classroom. He brings his hands up in defense once the door closes, but drops them when he sees a head of curly hair standing before him.

He sighs irritatedly and rolls his eyes, reaching out for the door handle, but Harry stops him short. "I need to talk to you."

Liam huffs. "How much is it going to take to get you to realize that I want absolutely nothing to do with you?"

"I understand that you're angry, and you have every right to be. But, please just hear me out." Harry begs.

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" Liam contemplates for a second. "Yeah, we have. I told you before and I'll tell you again: I don't want to hear anything that you have to say."

"Louis' in trouble." Harry rushes out when Liam makes a run for the door. He takes his hand off of the door handle and turns around slowly.

"What do you mean by  _trouble_?"

"I can't- I can't tell you anything. Trust me, I learned my lesson on that one. My chest still kind of hurts." Harry winces and rubs right below his collarbone. "But believe me when I tell you that he needs help."

"I swear to God, Styles, if you're lying to me-"

"I'm not lying. I swear. I wouldn't lie about something like this."

Liam stares at harry, scanning his face for any trace of him possibly lying, but doesn't find anything but desperation. "You're being serious right now, aren't you?"

"One hundred percent." Harry promises. "I need you to talk to him, because I know he hasn't told you. You need to force it out of it him - I don't care what you do."

"Well why can't you just tell me, if you already know?" Liam asks in confusion.

"I could. But, I'm not the person you need to hear it from.  _He_  is. You just- you  _need_  to get him to tell you, one way or another. I'm really worried about him."

Liam blinks at the pleading boy in front of him. "You really care about him?"

"More than you know." Harry answers immediately. "But he needs to know that I am not the bad guy here. He needs to know that what I did was just me trying to help him."

"Wait, what did you do?" Liam's mood changes quickly from worried to protective.

"He told me, you know that. And I did what I thought was the right thing, and told his mum. Apparently he thought differently, and as you saw yesterday, he now hates me. Again." Harry explains.

Liam doesn't say anything for a couple of minutes, just thinking to himself. He finally speaks up when Harry starts to get impatient. "Okay." He sighs. "Me and him aren't exactly on the best terms right now, so it's going to take some time, but I'll talk to him. And I'll talk to him about you," he continues, ignoring Harry's whisper of  _thank you_ , "if, and when, he tells me. But, one thing."

"Anything."

"I don't need you to act like you care about him just to let him down in the end. He's already obviously in a bad place, and- you have definitely not been making it any better. And when- and he'll be crazy to- he gives you a chance, don't fuck it up. I would give my life for that kid, and I will not hesitate to end yours if you hurt him." Liam states firmly.

Harry isn't phased by the threat - just takes it as it is. "Thank you."

Liam doesn't say anything, just shakes his head and rolls his eyes again. He lets out a breath and turns away from Harry once again and opens the door and exits the classroom without anymore interruptions from the boy behind him.


	9. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that Larry is going to start interacting soon. 
> 
> This is basically all dialogue, I apologize. I just had a lot of things that needed to be said by everyone. 
> 
> This chapter is kind of all over the place because Louis' head is all over the place. 
> 
> Please don't hate me for this chapter.

Liam pulls into the driveway of the Tomlinson house and turns off the engine, pulling his keys out of the ignition. He gets out of the car and makes his way to the door, taking a deep breath before he lifts his hand up to knock on the door.

He fully expects Louis to answer the door, but is surprises when he finds Jay, Louis' mum standing in front of him. Just by taking one look at her, you can already tell that she is stressed over something, her hair pulled back into a bun on the top of her head - different from the usually styled hair that she has falling over her shoulders - and there are worry lines visible on her forehead.

"Liam," she says, trying to mask her voice with happiness. "Hello, dear. How are you?"

"Hi, Jay. I'm doing alright," he says quickly. "Erm, is Louis here?"

She shakes her head sadly. "He isn't here, I haven't seen him since late last night."

Liam furrows his eyebrows and then twists his body away from the door and looks out to the driveway, only to see that Louis' car is, in fact, missing. He hadn't noticed that when he pulled in. He turns back to face Jay, "Do you know where he went?"

She purses her lips and shakes her head again. "He wouldn't tell me." Her voice cracks on the last word and she brings her hand up to cover her mouth.

Liam hesitates. "Did something happen?" He asks worriedly.

"He- oh, God - he just left. We got into this big argument, and he just left without telling me where he was going. I was for sure he was going to stay with you, but that's obviously not the case. He probably went to go see that _boy._ " She says bitterly.

"What boy?" Liam asks frantically.

"I- God, I don't remember his name. It was something like- I don't know - Zack?"

"Zayn?"

"Yes, that's what it was." Jay confirms.

"Okay, thank you, Jay." Liam says gratefully and runs off before Jay can elaborate on the subject. He jumps into his car and grabs his phone from the center console. He dials Louis' number first and is brought straight to voicemail. He curses under his breath and dials Niall's number next. He picks up on the second ring and answers with a cheerful, "Hey, baby."

"Hi, love. Erm, have you heard from Louis at all today?"

"No, I haven't." Niall says slowly. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I just stopped by his house and his mum said that he hasn't been home all day, last night either. I just really need to talk to him about something, and I can't seem to get ahold of him."

"I'm sorry, I haven't talked to him." Niall says apologetically.

"Its alright." Liam murmurs. "Oh yeah," he remembers, "his mum said that he might have went to stay at Zayn's place last night? Do you have any idea where that is?"

"Yeah, he lives a couple of houses down from mine, actually. I think it's like a cream colored house - always has a black Mercedes Benz sitting in front of it."

"Thank you." Liam says gratefully as he puts his keys back into the ignition and starts the car, hanging up the phone after him and Niall exchange their goodbye's.

He starts driving towards the direction of Niall's house, thinking of what he's going to say to Louis when he sees him. Preparing himself doe whatever Louis is going to tell him, _if_ he tells him. If it's as bad as Harry is making it out to be, then Liam needs to be ready for just about anything.

He eventually pulls into Niall's neighborhood, driving past his house and slowing down slightly, looking for the cream colored house that Niall told him about. He finally spots the black Mercedes Benz in one of the driveways, and just like he expected, Louis' car parked right beside it. He parks his own car on the side of the street and gets out, walking up to the door.

He knocks on the door and waits a couple of minutes, when no one answers the door, he rings the doorbell.

" _I'm coming! Hold your shit._ " He hears someone yell from inside before the door is being pulled open. He's met with a sleepy, boxer clad, Zayn leaning against the doorway with one eyebrow raised. "May I help you?" He asks impatiently when he sees that Liam isn't going to say anything.

"Erm, yeah. Is Louis here?"

"He's sleeping." Zayn huffs. "Why do you need him?"

"I just need to talk to him about something." Liam states vaguely.

Zayn breathes out heavily and pushes himself off of the doorframe, walking back into the house and leaving the door open. Liam takes that as an invitation to come inside, and closes the door behind him.

" _Babe!_ " Zayn yells as he runs up the stairs, taking two at a time. Liam takes the time to survey the area and realizes that the interior of the house looks almost exactly like Niall's, except for a couple of things placed differently.

"I _don't_ want to _talk_ to him." Liam hears Louis yell angrily from upstairs. Zayn says something back to him, but the reply is too quiet for Liam to hear. But eventually footsteps are descending down the stairs and Louis is standing in front of Liam with his arms folded over his chest, wearing his boxers and is shirtless under a jacket that Liam doesn't recognize as his own, so he assumes that it's Zayn's. He also notices the wrist brace covering one of his hands. Louis is looking at him with an annoyed expression, Zayn sitting down on the bottom stair behind Louis.

"What do you want?" He snaps.

"Can we talk, please?" "I think you've already said everything that you need to say. You made it clear that you don't want anything to do with me. So, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave." Louis states firmly.

"I really need to talk to you, Louis, please. Just give me five minutes, that's all I'm asking." Liam begs.

Louis opens his mouth to protest, but stops when Zayn stands up and places his hands on Louis' shoulders and squeezes them. "Go talk to him so he'll leave." He says lowly but firmly, and something seems to change Louis' mood quickly as he shifts his eyes to the ground and shrugs off Zayn's hands, and pushes past him to walk up the stairs. He comes back down clad in a pair of black denim jeans, a t-shirt with Zayn's jacket thrown back on over it, and a pair of black leather combat boots. He walks past Zayn without a word, but Zayn pulls him back by the hand and turns him around and plants a firm kiss to his lips.

He pulls back and pushes Louis' hair off of his forehead and kisses his forehead, before he lets him go. Liam walks and opens the front door and closes it behind him after both him and Louis walk out of the house. Louis yanks open the door to the passenger's side of the car and slides in, pulling his knees up into the seat with him and resting his chin on them. Liam sits down next to him and starts up the car, and pulls out of the driveway. They drive around in silence for ten minutes, neither of them saying a word to the other, nor sparing a look at the other, until Liam gets annoyed and pulls to the side of the road and turns the car off.

"What are you doing?" Louis mutters.

"Talk to me." Liam pleads, taking his seat belt off and turning his body to face Louis.

"What do you want me to say, Li?" Louis laughs humorlessly, throwing his hands up and putting his legs down, turning his body as well. "That I'm sorry? That I'm sorry that I'm not ready to talk to you about what I'm _dealing with_ right now? That what you said to me really _hurt_ me, _more_ than you can imagine."

"Louis, I didn't mean it, you have to know that. You're my best friend, I care about you more than anything in the world. I was angry, and I know that's no excuse for anything that I said, but I'm sorry."

Louis closes his eyes and throws his head back onto the headrest and shakes his head.

"I just want to know _why_ you told Harry, but not me. What did I do? I- can you not trust me? I just don't understand why I wouldn't be the first person you would want to tell."

Louis laughs and looks over at Liam with a pained expression. "I just can't." He whispers, dropping his head.

"Why?" Liam almost yells in frustration.

"Liam, _please_." Louis pleads, putting his head into his hands and pulling at his hair. "Please, stop."

"Just tell me what's going on!" Liam yells in a pleading tone. "I'm trying to help you, but I can't do that if you _don't tell me!_ "

Louis covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut. He lets out a pained sob, pulling his feet back up into his seat and resting his forehead on his knees. He tries his hardest to block out Liam's words, rocking back and forth in his seat, his body trembling from head to toe. He can still hear the muffled words of Liam's yelling, he can't hear a word he's saying, but the noise is still there, overwhelming him and pushing him closer to the edge with each second that passes. Until he finally breaks.

" _Shut up!_ " He screams, his voice too loud in the small space of the car. He's not sure if Liam has stopped yelling, stopped pushing him, but Louis continues. "Stop _yelling_ at me!" He lifts his head up and looks at Liam through tear-blurred eyes, who is looking at him in shock.

"He _hits_ me, okay?" Louis sobs. "Are you happy now, is that what you wanted to fucking hear?"

"He- what?" Liam breathes.

"I didn't- I didn't want to tell you," Louis hiccups. "I didn't want to tell you b-because he's going to find out, I know he is. He _always_ does."

"Louis, I-"

"And, I can't _take_ it anymore. Okay? I was trying to fix it, I was. I was trying to make everything okay again. And we were doing fine, we were doing _so fine._ But then you showed up and you ruined _everything_. Why did you have to do that?!" Louis' voice starts getting hysterical.

"I'm not going to apologize for saving you." Liam shakes his head in confusion.

"I don't need anyone to save me." Louis laughs wetly. "I just need people to let me fix this by myself."

"This isn't anything you can fix, Louis. He's obviously _really_ messed up in the head-"

"Don't you dare talk about him like that. He loves me, I know he does." Louis spits.

"Louis, listen to me." Louis snaps his mouth closed and bites his lip to try to stop his bottom lip from trembling. "I am _not_ going to let you sit here and try to convince me and yourself that that guy loves you. You _do not_ hit the people that you love. And, if you really believe that, then you are not the person I thought you were. The Louis Tomlinson _I_ know is smarter and stronger than that. The Louis Tomlinson _I_ know would not let some guy slap him around and then call it love. You have changed so much, and I'm not going to lie to you, I hate it. I hate this guy who's sitting in front of me right now, but I dealt with him because I knew he was hurting."

Louis continues to sniffle quietly, not uttering a word.

"But, Louis. This has _got_ to stop. This person right here? This is not the person that you want to be. You've let him shape you into this- this _coward_. You've let him shape you into this person who's afraid to stand up for himself."

"I'm not a coward." Louis grits through his teeth.

"You're not? Because if you weren't, then you'd know that it's _wrong_ for people to put their hands on you. You'd know that the very first time he laid a finger on you, that the first thing you should've done was ended it with him. But you _didn't_. And, why is that?"

"Because I love him." Louis answers immediately, brand new tears falling from his eyes.

"Why?" Liam asks simply, no accusation in his tone, just a simple question.

Louis' jaw clenches and his hands ball into fists, one of them flying out and hitting the car door as he lets out a sob. "I'm scared." He whimpers.

"Of what, Louis?"

"That- that if I break up with him he's-" He sobs again, "He'll get angry, and he'll hurt me. My only other option is- is to try to fix everything, to try to get things back to normal, but I _can't_ , I've tried everything. I don't know what to do, Liam."

Liam doesn't respond, just turns the key in the ignition and starts the car back up, pulling out onto the road.

"Where are we going?" Louis sniffles.

"To see your mum, she's worried sick about you, you know?" Liam glances over at Louis. "And then we're going to talk about this, and I'm going to help you get out of this."

"But, why? I've been nothing but mean to you. I kept things from you that I shouldn't have."

"That may be true. But, you're still my best friend. It's my job to look after you." Louis just nods and relaxes back into his seat, not saying another word all the way to his house.

\--

"Louis, is that you?" Louis hears a hopeful voice call from the living room once he and Liam step through the door. He takes a deep breath and braces himself as his mum comes into sight.

"Mummy." Louis breathes, feeling his lower lip start to tremble for what seems like the twentieth time that day.

"Oh, baby. Come here." Jay opens up her arms and Louis immediately stumbles forward and lets himself be wrapped up in the warmth of his mum's arms.

"I'm so sorry, mum." Louis sobs into her chest.

"Shh." Jay soothes, bringing her hand up to stroke the back of Louis' head. "It's okay."

"I shouldn't have said what I said."

"I agree, completely. But, it's okay now, I forgive you." She assures the crying boy in her arms.

Once Louis settles down, he pulls away from his mum and wipes his face. "Erm," He says nervously. "If it's okay, I'd like to come home."

"You're always welcome home, honey. As long as you promise you'll never do that to me again, yeah?"

"Yeah," Louis chuckles and sniffles. "Erm, I still need to go get my car from over there, but other than that, I don't think I'm going to be seeing him again. I'm sorry for not listening to you."

"I'm proud of you for doing this." Jay strokes his cheek and kisses him on the forehead. Louis just smiles and nods, looking back to Liam and nodding his head toward the stairs. Liam nods and gives a small wave to Jay before following Louis up the stairs and into his bedroom. He closes the door behind him as Louis crawls onto the bed and leans against the headboard. Liam follows his actions and they both sit in silence.

Louis sits and plays with the zipper on Zayn's jacket as he thinks of what he's going to do. How he's going to break up with Zayn, what he's going to say to him. What he's going to do when he _does_ break up with Zayn. Zayn's all he's known for the past three years. Zayn was his first serious relationship and Louis doesn't know how he's going to be able to compare anything to that in the future.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Liam asks, bringing Louis out of his thoughts.

Louis just shrugs, not looking up - suddenly too scared to look Liam in the eye after what Louis just told him.

"Did he do that to you?" Liam gestures to the brace on Louis' hand.

"No," Louis says quietly, shaking his head. "I erm, I punched the bathroom wall the other day after you left. I sprained my wrist."

"How long has this been happening?"

Louis furrows his eyebrows. "Like, two days? Do you not remember-"

Liam shakes his head, "no, not- that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you and..." He trails off. 

"I don't know, two? Two and a half years? Somewhere around there." Louis mumbles.

"Two years." Liam scoffs. "And you didn't think to tell anyone? You didn't think that maybe calling the police would be the right thing to do?"

"I wouldn't do that to him." Louis snaps. "What he does, doesn't change the fact that I still love him and care about him."

"But, yet, you're _scared_ of him. That's not right."

Louis shrugs again and Liam begins to say something else when Louis' face suddenly crumples.

" _Fuck_ , I wish I would stop _crying!_ " He yells in frustration and runs a hand over his face. He takes a deep breath and continues. "There will be days where we'll be perfect and all sappy and shit like any other couple, and he'll tell me he loves me over and over again, and I believe him. Because, why wouldn't I? And then, the _simplest_ things set him off and then he uses me as his punching bag, and I tell myself that I _need_ to get out of there, that it's not okay. But, then he apologizes. And he cries and cries and tells me that he loves me. And then I fall for it _every single time_." He looks over to Liam with tear-filled eyes. "Why do I do that?" He whimpers.

"Come here." Liam holds his arms out and Louis takes the invitation and crawls into Liam's lap, making himself as small as possible and burying his face into Liam's chest. Liam strokes his back soothingly as he talks, "I just want to tell you right now, that none of this is your fault. I don't ever want to hear you take the blame for what he's done to you. Okay?" Louis nods. "Something in your heart is telling you to stay because you're hoping that everything will go back to normal. You're hoping that the person that you fell in love with is still inside of him somewhere. But, Louis, I'm going to tell you right now that you are not going to find that person. He's long gone. He disappeared the _first_ second he put his hands on you."

"I know. I just guess part of me thought that maybe I could fix it - fix _him_. And- I don't know, I just- I couldn't." Louis sniffles.

"See, that's the thing - you're doing the impossible, there is no fixing it. The only option you have left, Louis, is to leave."

"I'm scared, Liam." Louis starts crying again. "I know, I know. And, that's what I'm here for. And Harry, if you'd let him." Liam casually lets the boys name slip into the conversation.

"Harry?" Louis perks up at the name, lifting his head up and wiping his eyes.

"Yeah," Liam chuckles lightly, "he was just trying to help you, you know that, right?

"By telling my mum," he grumbles and throws his head back down on Liam's chest.

"He was just trying to do the right thing, Lou. If it wasn't for him, you would still be over there right now, laying in his bed like you were when I came and got you."

Louis sighs and sits up suddenly and climbs off the bed. He slips the black combat boots off of his feet and throws them into the corner of the room, followed by the pair of black denim jeans. He reaches for the sleeve of the jacket he's wearing, but stops short when he begins to pull it off of his arm. He looks down at it and slowly zips it up, pulling the sleeves over his hands and wrapping his arms around his torso, curling in on himself.

His phone starts ringing from the jacket pocket, and he pulls it out and looks at the caller ID.

_Zayn :) <3_

Louis clears his throat before answering, ignoring the questioning look on Liam's face. "Hello?"

" _Hey, baby. You never came back._ " Zayn replies in a confused tone.

"Oh, I erm- yeah, Liam took me home. Mum called and said she needed to talk with me about something."

" _Is everything alright?_ "

"Yeah, yeah it's fine. Nothing to worry about."

" _Are you coming back tonight?_ " Zayn asks hopefully.

"I am. I can have Liam bring me back over there if that's okay. I actually, erm- need to talk to you about something." Louis says while glancing over at Liam, who nods at him in encouragement.

" _Well, that's never good, is it?_ " Zayn chuckles. " _Okay, I'll see you then, babe. I love you._ "

"I-" Louis clears his throat when his voice cracks, "I love you, too." He returns, and then hangs up the phone. He sighs and pockets the phone and walks over to his closet to pull on a pair of his own sweatpants. "Can you take me back to Zayn's, please?"

" _Louis_ -" Liam starts in a warning tone.

"Liam, don't start." Louis says tiredly. "I know what I have to do." He sighs, closing the door to his closet and walking out of his bedroom without another word. He passes through the living room with a simple _I'm going to Zayn's._ He hears his mum begin to protest, but ignores it as he slips his shoes on and steps out of the house, slamming the door behind him. He walks down the drive and gets into LIam's car and waits.

\--

"You had to talk to me about something?" Zayn asks as he and Louis make their way to the couch. Zayn stops his boyfriend and sits down, pulling Louis into his lap. Louis straddles Zayn's lap and looks down, playing with the hem of Zayn's shirt. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth to talk, when Zayn interrupts him.

"Before you start, I need to show you something." He says, holding up a finger. He lifts his hips up, while placing a steadying hand on Louis' hip, and pulls something out of his back pocket.

It's a card. A business card to be exact, and he hands it to Louis, talking to him while he looks at it.

"A couple of days ago I was sitting here, thinking about everything. I thought about how special you are, what an amazing person you are - inside and out. I thought about how much love and respect you deserve. And, I thought about how I want to be the person to give everything, and more, to you. And, I can't do that without a little help."

Louis looks up from the card with tear-filled eyes and bites his lip.

"I went and talked to someone, someone who can help me. I talked to her, and we set up a schedule for me to see her twice a week, every week. And, when things start progressing, it'll change to just once a week, every week."

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"I want to make things right." Zayn explains, grabbing Louis' hands in his. "And if that means having to go see a therapist at least once a week for the rest of my life, then that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do everything that I can to make you happy again, to make _us_ happy again."

"I don't- I don't know what to say." Louis says in disbelief.

"You don't have to say anything," Zayn smiles, "I just need you to know that I love you. I need you to know that I'm going to change. I know that nothing I say or do is ever going to take back what I've done to you, but I will spend the rest of my life doing _whatever_ I can to make it up to you, I can promise you that. From this day forward, I will never- I swear to you, baby, I will _never_ put my hands on you again. Okay?"

Louis grabs Zayn's face in his hands and leans forward to press their forehead together, closing his eyes. He shakes his head and lets a couple of tears fall.

"I swear to God, Zayn..." Louis grits through his teeth, trailing off mid-sentence and shaking his head again. He pulls back and looks fiercely into Zayn's eyes. " _One_ more chance. That is _it_. If you break this promise, I am _done_. I mean it, Zayn. No more. I am _tired_ of being treated like a piece of shit. I am _not_ your punching bag, I am your boyfriend. I do not deserve to go through what you put me through. But, I've dealt with it. And do you know why?"

"Because you love me." Zayn says, a hopeful tone to his voice.

"Because I love you," Louis repeats, "exactly. But, you know, I shouldn't. I _really_ shouldn't. You don't deserve to be loved by someone like me. You don't deserve to be given another chance. I should just drop your ass right now, and walk out of this house and never speak to you again."

Louis watches as Zayn's eyes turn from hopeful to fearful and frantic.

"But, I won't. Because, do you remember what I told you before?" Zayn shakes his head and shrugs. "I believe in you, and I believe that you can change. But, like I said before, this is your _last_ chance. Do not fuck this up. I am begging you, _please_ don't fuck this up." "I won't." Zayn promises.

Louis puts his forehead against Zayn's again and thinks about how angry his mum and Liam are going to be with him. His plan was to come over here and end things, once and for all. But, once again, he's ended up right back in Zayn's arms - the one place he deserves to be the least.

"Oh yeah, didn't you have to tell me something?"

"It's not important anymore." Louis says, not opening his eyes.

"Are you su-"

"I'm sure, I'm sure." Louis nods, quieting Zayn by pressing his lips hard against his own. He tugs on the hem of Zayn's shirt, causing him to pull away and allowing Louis to pull the shirt off of Zayn's body. Louis reconnects their lips and brings both of his hands back down, unbuttoning and unzipping Zayn's jeans, effectively ending all conversation for the rest of the night.

\--


	10. Chapter 10

Liam hasn't spoken to Louis in three days. That may not seem like a lot of time, but under the circumstances, it seems like a fucking lifetime. To say that Liam is pissed, is an understatement. He is _livid_. 

As soon as Louis told him about the talk that he and Zayn had, Liam turned right around and walked away without another word. Liam had called him later that night to apologize and to try, once again, to talk Louis out of staying with Zayn, but Louis wasn't having it. Louis tried and tried to explain to Liam that _I'm okay, I know what I'm doing, we talked it out and he's going to get help, you don't have to worry about me, Li._ He wasn't listening to Liam telling him everything wrong with the relationship that he is in and everything that Zayn has and is  _still_ putting Louis through, he wasn't listening to Liam telling him that he's a _fucking idiot for staying with him and you need to start thinking of yourself for once, and realize that you deserve to be happy_. Liam finally had enough with all of the bullshit pouring out of Louis' mouth, hung up the phone and hasn't spoken to him since.

Louis takes notice in how Liam purposefully starts to take the long way to class just so he doesn't have to see or talk to Louis. In all of their classes they have together, where the two boys are always sat next to each other, Liam now chooses to sit by Olly and Ed; two people whom Liam has _never_ spoken to in his life. But, apparently Liam is willing to associate himself with just about anyone, if it means that he doesn't have to speak to Louis.

Louis thinks Liam is being immature. He thinks that Liam should just let it go and be _proud_ of Louis for trying to patch up his relationship and attempt to make himself happy again. Instead, he opts for ignoring all of Louis' phone calls and making new friends.

The thought of his best friend hating him It almost makes Louis want to curl up in a ball and cry for hours on end. But, he's not going to. No. He's going to prove to Liam that Zayn is trying to change and that he is a good boyfriend.

He'll see.

\--

If there's one thing that Louis hates more than anything, it's being proven wrong. He hates apologizing, the words I'm sorry just feel so foreign coming out of his mouth. He always tries his absolute hardest to make things go his way, no matter what it takes. But, when that doesn't work out, it's time for Louis to put on his big boy pants and own up to everything he's done wrong. Even if it literally _kills_ him to do it.

He's sitting on his bed, headphones blaring The Fray lyrics into his ears - his mum always tells him that he needs to stop turning his music up so loud, so he can hear when people are trying to talk to him. He can't even count on one hand how many pairs of headphones he's gone through from the wires in them snapping, because his mum comes into his room and pulls them out of his ears because she gets tired of trying to scream his name over his music. He has two weeks worth of missing work splayed out in front of him. It seems like it's taking an eternity to finish all of this homework. When he thinks that he's almost finished, he looks through his backpack just to find even more unfinished worksheets. It's like an endless loop of worksheet after worksheet _after worksheet after worksheet_. Louis swears he has some duplicates of certain worksheets, but there's so many papers sitting out in front of him and inside of his backpack that he's lost track of all the papers that he has and hasn't done.

Just as Louis is trying to figure out how the hell to tell the difference between molecular and empirical formulas, he hears a noise downstairs over his music. He pauses the song and pulls out one headphone and listens for any signs of someone being in the house. When he doesn't hear anything, he just shrugs and puts the headphone back in, continuing with his Chemistry homework that he swears was put together by Satan himself.

Not even a minute later, both of his headphones are being forcefully yanked out of his ears. There goes another twenty dollars. 

" _Ow!_ " Louis exclaims. He looks up to see Zayn standing at the foot of his bed, and he looks _angry_. Actually, he thinks that angry is the understatement of the year. Zayn's jaw is clenched, his hands are in white-knuckled fists, his chest is rising and falling quickly with heavy breaths, his lip is turned up in a sneer and his eyes are full of pure hatred and anger. He is  _furious._

"What?" Louis asks, trying to stay calm. It doesn't work though, the tremor is clear in his voice. 

"You know what." Zayn growls through clenched teeth. 

"No- I don't. That's why I asked."

" _Don't_ get smart with me!" Zayn yells, grabbing one of Louis' textbooks off his bed and throwing it across the room. 

Louis flinches back and stands from his bed, backing away from Zayn. He tries to keep the trembling of his body under control, he learned a long time ago that being scared only fuels Zayn's anger.

"I don't- I really don't know what you're talking about." Louis says frantically.

Zayn rolls his eyes, "do I have to fucking spell everything out for you? Are you that stupid? How many times do I have to tell you that what happens between us, stays between us? Can you learn to keep your big mouth shut, or do I have to fucking shut it for you?"

"No," Louis shakes his head quickly. "I don't-"

Zayn's humorless laugh interrupts him, "why do you keep lying to me?"

"I haven't _lied_ ," Louis says in exasperation, "about anything."

" _Yes,_ you have! You told someone." Zayn snaps.

Louis opens his mouth and closes it again immediately and averts his gaze. He can't really say that he didn't, because then he really _would_  be lying. And, he knows how much Zayn hates it when he lies. The last time Louis tried keeping something from him was almost a year and a half ago. He ended up coming home with a fractured collarbone, and when asked by his mum what happened, he had to lie and say he went to Liam's for the weekend and that he fell of his board when they went snowboarding up in the mountains. She believed him. She believed every excuse he told her over the years when she asked about a bruise he forgot to cover. 

"He's my best friend," Louis whispers as an explanation. "I had to let him know why I was so unhappy."

"Do you really think he cares? Do you really think he wants to deal with all of your so-called  _problems?_ Do you really think he wants to put up with a pathetic little bitch like you? He  _doesn't care_ about you, Louis. How many times do I have to tell you that?" Zayn sneers.

"You don't know what you're talking about. He's been my best friend since the first grade, I know that he-" Louis tries to defend himself. 

"Stop kidding yourself, Lou." Zayn shakes his head. "Do you know who the only person that cares about you is?" Louis shakes his head, still not looking at Zayn. "It's me.  _I_ am the only person who has put up with you for the past four years.  _I_ am the only person who is willing to put up with your shit.  _I_ am the one who-"

"Just- just  _stop!_ " Louis suddenly yells, getting tired of Zayn throwing hurtful words at him. "Stop talking." Zayn raises his eyebrows in shock and tilts his head, but doesn't say anything else. "Liam is my best friend. I  _know_ that he cares about me. Wanna know how I know?"

"Enlighten me," Zayn says flatly.

" _He_ is the one who is always there for me when I have no one else to run to.  _He_ is the one who talks me through my bad times, when you're too busy being an asshole!" Louis screams, " _h_ _e_ is the one who holds me until I stop crying at night because you don't know how to keep your fucking hands to yourself!  _He_ is the one who does everything he can to try and make me smile and laugh and just be  _happy,_ because the only emotion you know how to express is anger. And the only way you know how to express it is by  _hitting_ me! Don't you  _dare_ tell me that he doesn't care about me. He shows me he cares more in one day than you have in the last four years that we've been together!" Louis' chest rises and falls with heavy breaths as he finishes his rant.

Louis can't believe he just did that. He's never yelled at Zayn like that because he's always been scared to. He's never been able to express his feelings like that because, unlike every other normal couple, him and Zayn don't know what  _communication_ means. For the last four years, he's kept everything bottled up and, even though he didn't get to say everything that needed to just now, he got most of it out and he's never felt better. 

He doesn't feel fear creeping up his spine like he usually does when he yells at Zayn. All he feels is relief for finally being able to stand up for himself for once.

"So, that's really how you feel?" Zayn asks. 

"Yes, Zayn, it is. It's about time that I told you that."

"So you don't love me?" Zayn furrows his eyebrows. 

"Don't- do not even play the  _I love you_ card with me. You know I do. But, I am not your punching bag. I am not the person that you can just come to when you need someone to take your anger out on." Louis says firmly.

"But, you're breaking up with me."

Louis lets out a breath and looks down. "I need time away from you to fix myself mentally. And, so do you."

"I am, though. I got myself a fucking therapist, I'm making the initiative to change myself. For you." Zayn says desperately. This is what always happens when Louis starts to talk about them breaking up. Zayn gets scared that Louis is really going to follow through with leaving him, and he starts apologizing and making up excuses for himself and talking a bunch of bullshit like _it'll never happen again, I promise_. And Louis always ends up not following through with his original plan.

But, not this time. This time, Louis is thinking of himself. He's thinking about how he deserves to be happy and how he doesn't need this kind of person in his life.

"And I appreciate the effort, I really do. But until you get better and learn to control yourself, I'm not doing this anymore."

"Louis, please." Zayn begs.

"I'm not- no. You're not pulling me back in just for the cycle to restart itself all over again. Until you can fully stay true to your word and tell me that it's _never_ going to happen again, you and I are no longer together." Louis says, trying and succeeding at keeping the shakiness out of his voice.

"No," Zayn breathes, shaking his head.

"This is what's best for the both of us and you know it, Zayn. Would you rather me stay with you and be unhappy? Or, would you rather us take some time away from each other so we can both be happy?"

"I want you to be happy." Zayn says immediately.

"Then this is what I have to do," Louis shrugs. "I don't have any other choice."

Zayn nods and wipes his face with the back of his hand where a couple of tears fell. "I'll just, erm-" he sniffles, "I'll leave you alone now." He turns on his heel and makes his way out of the room.

\--

Louis doesn't waste any time after Zayn leaves. He runs downstairs and grabs his car keys and runs out of the house - he's pretty sure he forgot to lock the front door behind him - and jumps in his car. He considered texting Liam first, but he didn't want to take the chance of Liam either not texting him back or telling him to fuck off, so he decided against it. He figures that if he just shows up at Liam's doorstep, there's no way that he can turn Louis away. 

He turns into Liam's driveway close to fifteen minutes later and pulls the keys out of the ignition and runs up to the front door, ringing the doorbell repeatedly. He stops when Liam answers the door with an exasperated expression, but it turns hard once he comes face to face with Louis. He rolls his eyes and folds his arms over his chest, not making eye contact with Louis. 

"You were right," Louis says, trying to catch his breath. Which is sad because it shows how out of shape he really is, since he can't even run ten feet without it feeling like he just ran a ten mile marathon. When Liam doesn't respond, he continues, "the only way that I am going to be happy is if I start thinking of myself." Liam looks at Louis and raises an eyebrow. "I can't do that. I mean," Louis adds quickly when he sees Liam's hand reach for the doorknob. "I can't- be happy when I'm with him. I realized that."

Liam unfolds his arms and leans against the doorframe but still doesn't say anything. He patiently waits for Louis to continue.

"I was an idiot, just like you said." Louis shrugs. "I chose not to listen to what everyone around me was saying, especially you, and I'm sorry."

"Is that it?" Liam finally speaks. 

Louis shakes his head, "you'll be happy to know that I broke up with him."

"Oh, yeah?"

Louis nods. "I don't plan on ever seeing him again. I said what needed to be said to him, and that's it.

"Does it make me a dick to say that I'm kind of happy?" Liam questions. 

"Only if it doesn't make me a dick to say that I am, too." Louis chuckles lightly, Liam joining in with him. "Are we still friends?" Louis asks nervously once their laughter dies down. He knows it's a stupid question. Him and Liam have been in way too many fights over the year to let just one ruin everything. But he has to make sure, just in case.

"Are we-" Liam laughs to Louis' confusion. Then he opens his arms, inviting Louis in for a hug. Louis immediately accepts it, falling into his best friends arms. "What kind of stupid question is that?" Liam asks into Louis' hair. Louis shrugs. "I don't think I could ever imagine my life without you. Just like you shouldn't be able to imagine yours without me." 

"Cocky bastard," Louis laughs into Liam's chest and pushes him away lightly. "But, it's true."

"Are you okay?" Liam asks softly, suddenly turning the conversation serious.

"It's going to take a while, I'm sure. I mean, I was with the kid for four years. And, I know that I'm going to be mentally fucked up for a long time, there's no doubt about that. But, I'll be okay." Louis nods, giving his best friend a small smile.

"I'm proud of you, you know."

"I know," Louis pretends to flip his hair over his shoulder with a small smile.

"C'mon," Liam laughs, taking Louis by the shoulder and pulling him into the house. 

\--

Louis leaves Liam's house a little over three hours later. He wasn't surprised to see Niall already sitting on the couch when he entered the house, him and Liam have been having a thing for a while. All three of them huddled together on the couch and watched a movie and just talked about anything and everything. Louis started feeling awkward with Niall and Liam cuddling on the couch next to him, so he decided that he'd just go home for dinner instead of eating take-out like Liam suggested.

When he walks into his house and toes his shoes off, the first thing he smells is spaghetti sauce. He walks into the kitchen and finds his mum standing over the stove, and when he walks up and hugs her from behind he sees, to his excitement, that she is cooking spaghetti. 

"Dinner's almost ready, honey." She informs him. "Can you go upstairs and get your sister, please?" 

Louis nods and releases his hold. He runs upstairs and knocks on his sister's bedroom door. "Dinner's ready, Lotts!" 

Just when he's about to leave, his sister peeks her head through the door. Her face is covered in about fifty pounds of makeup and Louis doesn't even want to know what she's wearing. "Can you tell mum that I'm not feeling well?" She whispers.

Louis raises an eyebrow. "Where are you going?"

"Katie invited me to a party tonight and it's really not something that I can miss. But, what  _you_ are telling mum is that I'm sick and that I'm going to bed early."

Louis narrows his eyes, "what's in it for me?"

"I'll- I don't know. I'll do your chores for a week." Lottie shrugs. 

"I'm eighteen, I don't have to do chores anymore." Louis says with a smug smile and turns around before she can say anything else. "Mum!" He yells as he walks down the stairs. "Lott is going to a secret party tonight, but what she  _wants_ you to think is that she's staying home sick and sleeping."

"I hate you," he hears her say from the top of the stairs. 

Louis just laughs as she slams her door and sits down at the dining room table where a plate is already sat out for him. "Did she really think she was going to get away with that?" He hears his mum say as she walks out of the kitchen with three glasses of water. 

"Apparently," Louis chuckles, digging into his food. "You should have seen her face. Literally  _buried_ in makeup."

His mum sits down at the table next to him, "I swear that girl thinks that she's older than she actually is most of the time."

"Yeah, well... that's what happens when she has friends who are my age," Louis shrugs.

"I can be friends with who I want," Lottie grumbles as she sits down. She's wearing sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt and most of her makeup is washed off. 

"That's true, yes." Their mom nods, "but that doesn't mean that you are allowed to go out and do the things that they do. You're only fourteen, sweetie." 

Lottie rolls her eyes and grumbles under her breath. 

"What did you do today, Lou?" Jay asks him, changing the subject.

"I, erm," Louis purses his lips and looks down at his plate and pushes his food around with his fork. "I broke up with Zayn, then I went to Liam's for a bit and hung out with him and Niall." He says casually. 

"You, what?" Jay says in a shocked voice, just at the same time that Lottie lets out a gasp. "I thought you already broke up with that boy."

"I was going to, but then he started doing what he always does - saying things to make me change my mind. And, like usual, I fell for it." Louis looks up at his mum through his lashes and sees her staring at him disappointedly. "But, I followed through with it this time." He adds frantically, "I'm- I'm done. For good."

"Louis," Jay starts in a stern voice.

Louis holds his hand up. "I don't need a lecture, mum. Trust me, I learned my lesson. Everything that you're about to say, I already heard from Liam, so don't waste your time. Please."

Jay sighs, "I'm upset that you didn't end it when you said you were going to, but... I'm proud of you, honey." She smiles. "It takes a lot to do that."

"I know. And, it did. But, now that I did, I'm so- relieved. I feel like I can finally breathe again without feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I just- I don't know." He shrugs.

"Well, I'm glad you're happy. You made the right decision."

"I know," Louis nods. "I am." 

He looks over to Lottie and gives her a small nod, which she returns with a smile. All three of them turn their focus back to their dinner and the rest of the night is filled with laughter and smiles shared between the three of them. 

\--

 

Despite feeling relieved about the fact that he is finally free, that he can finally do what he wants without feeling like his every move is being watched and judged. Just like he told his mum, he is happy that he finally got away after three long years. But at the same time, he just- he can't help but feel sad about it all. Zayn is the  _only_ thing that Louis has known since his first year of high school. Zayn was his very first relationship that he actually took seriously, Zayn was the very first person that he found himself falling in love not even three months after they started dating. Zayn was... he was Louis' everything. And Louis doesn't know how long it's going to take him to move on from that.

Louis has refrained from contacting Zayn in any way, even if just to ask him how he's doing. Because, that is just showing Zayn that he's not capable of moving on, and he knows that's exactly what Zayn wants. 

The day after Louis broke up with him, Zayn came down to the school and caused a big scene, screaming at Louis about how  _you made a big mistake,_ and  _we'll see how long you can last without me by your side,_ and the worst of all:  _I made you into the person you are today, you are nothing without me. **Nothing** , Louis! _After hearing all the commotion, security came and ushered Zayn off school premises, threatening to call the cops if he showed up on their property again. _  
_

Louis was a bit shaken up after that, even though he knew that Zayn would never think about hurting him with that many people around. But Liam was there to talk him down after - he's always there when Louis needs him. 

Now it is Louis' job to show Zayn that he  _can_ make it without him. That he  _can_ move on. Louis is his own person. He's not going to let Zayn control him for the rest of his life. He's not going to give Zayn the satisfaction of being right. Yeah, it's going to hurt - letting go - but it's what he has to do. Louis knows he's going to be able to get through it, though, with the help of his friends and family.

Maybe even Harry.

\--

It's a couple of weeks after the breakup when the two boys finally run into each other. 

Louis is walking to the cafeteria after third period to go get some lunch, since he was late almost late for school this morning and didn't get a chance to grab something for breakfast. It's a very rare occurrence for Louis to eat lunch at school, since he's usually still full from breakfast, with lunch being so close. But, he never fails to turn into a mama bear invading a campsite when he returns home from school. 

Louis has his headphones lodged into his ears, as always, and is looking down at his phone, when somebody runs right into him. Louis sucks in a sharp breath at the impact, and looks up to see a pair of green eyes looking back at him. He slowly pulls his headphones out of his ears and unplugs them from his phone, stuffing them into his pants pocket.

"Watch where you're going, yeah?" He says, raising his eyebrows. 

Harry's eyes widen, " _Oh,_ I- I'm sorry, I didn't-" he starts apologizing. 

"I'm kidding," Louis chuckles lightly, surprised by Harry's reaction. 

"Oh," Harry breathes out a laugh.

"I"m just gonna..." Louis says after an awkward pause between the two, trailing off and pointing a finger past Harry.

As he walks past Harry and continues towards the cafeteria, Harry speaks up. 

"Are you okay?" 

Louis turns around with a raised eyebrow and sees that Harry has a hesitant hand reached out towards him, but slowly pulls it back. "What do you mean?" Louis shrugs. 

Harry copies his movement, "I mean with the whole, erm-" he starts gesturing his hands wildly, not quite knowing how to phrase what he's trying to say.

" _Oh,_ " Louis says, understanding. "Yeah, I'm- I'm okay. I mean, as okay as I  _can_ be. But- yeah, okay." He nods. 

"I'm glad. That you're, you know- okay."

"Thanks," Louis laughs lightly at Harry's awkwardness. And, after a second, "wait, how did you..." He trails off, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"I talked to Liam." Harry says simply, but adds on, "or- well,  _he_ talked to  _me._ " 

"Of course," Louis says under his breath. "Thank you, again," he says a bit louder. "I'm just gonna- go now. Cafeteria's calling my name." 

Harry nods with a small smile and steps to the side, letting Louis pass by. Louis marches the rest of the way towards the cafeteria and searches for Liam as soon as he walks through the double doors. Once he finds him sitting at a table, sharing heart-eyes with Niall, he makes his way over to the couple. Louis forces his way in between the two, ignoring both of their protests, and turns his body towards Liam once he finally pushes his way through. 

"Why are you telling people my business?" Louis hisses. 

"What are you-? I haven't told anyone anything." Liam stammers confusedly.

"You told Harry that me and Zayn broke up."

"Louis," Liam sighs. "Why don't you just-"

"If I wanted him to know, I would've told him myself. It's been two weeks, that's plenty of time to tell him. I obviously  _didn't_ want him to know, or else I would've taken the initiative to tell him by now." Louis tries to keep his voice as quiet as possible in the student filled cafeteria. 

"Because you're being stubborn, that's why." Liam whispers back, shifting his eyes to look at Niall to make sure he's not listening in. 

"How am I being stubborn?" Louis laughs in disbelief. 

"Because you won't give him a chance."

"A  _chance?_ " Louis barks out a laugh, gaining the attention of some students sitting at the next table. "He doesn't deserve one. He told my mum, my  _mum_ , Liam. He told her one of the biggest secrets I have."

"Had." Liam corrects him. "Because of him, you are no longer with that pathetic excuse of a human being." Liam seethes, getting angry at the thought of someone hurting his best friend.

Louis averts his gaze and looks down at his hands. He shakes his head, "that still doesn't mean-"

"Louis," Liam's voice softens, "give him a chance."

Before Louis can respond, the bell for the end of lunch goes off. Louis sniffles and wipes away a stray tear that fell from his eye. He stands up from the table and points a finger at Liam, "we're not done talking about this." He says firmly and walks away.

It's when he's sitting in his fourth period class, listening to his Chemistry teacher drone on and on about balancing chemical formulas, that he realizes that he never got the chance to eat lunch. 

\--

"How was your day at school, honey?" That's the first question that Louis gets asked as soon as he walks through the front door. He toes his shoes off and walks past the foyer and into the living room. He dumps his ag on the arm chair and takes a seat next to his mum on the couch with a sigh. 

"It was great. I mean, if you consider my best friend butting into my business  _great,_ then yeah, it was amazing," he says sarcastically.

"What happened?" Jay asks, concern lacing her tone.

Louis takes a deep breath, "Liam wants me to make up with Harry." His mum throws his a confused look. "The- the kid who told you about Zayn," he mumbles, looking down at his hands. He always feels really awkward whenever he has to talk about Zayn with someone, especially his mum. Even though he knows it's not true, that his mum would  _never_ judge him, no matter what the case, but he always thinks that if he looks his mum in the eye that all he'll find is judgement. 

"I like that boy," Jay murmurs thoughtfully.

Louis scoffs, "of course you do. You, along with everyone else in the universe."

"Well, what's not to like about him?"

"You mean, besides the fact that I trusted him with something and he went behind my back and told someone?" Louis asks flatly. "And, to make it worse, that someone was  _you._ "

Jay puts an arm around her son's shoulder and brings him in for a side hug. "He was just looking out for you, sweetheart," she says sweetly, but Louis tenses and sucks in a sharp breath.

"Can you- not call me that, please?" He asks, rubbing his hands over his thighs. 

Jay's eyebrows furrow, but she murmurs an  _okay,_ anyways. "But, like I was saying- he was just looking out for you," she repeats once Louis relaxes. 

"I guess," Louis sighs. "What do you think I should do?" 

"I think... I think that you should talk to him. Give him a chance, Lou. He really seems like someone that you could confide in. I can tell that he cares about you. Granted, I only talked to him for about an hour, but I can tell. He worries about you and your safety."

"Yeah?" Louis looks up at her.

Jay nods, a small smile gracing her face. "He's good for you." 

\--

"How do you feel about coming by my house later?" Liam asks Louis the next day at school, on his way to class. It's the weekend, and he's pretty sure that Louis has forgotten the definition of  _fun,_ considering that he was with  _him_ for so long. It's been so long since he's been able to hangout with his best friend and he thinks that tonight will be good for him. 

"Who's all going to be there?" Louis asks, already interested.

"Just me and Ni," Liam shrugs. He doesn't mention the fact that he stopped Harry in the hallway not even a minute ago and asked him the exact same question. Louis doesn't need to know that bit of information right now.

"Erm, yeah- I just need to ask-" Louis cuts himself off mid-sentence and huffs out a breath. Liam already knows what he was going to say;  _I just need to ask Zayn if it's okay._ Louis shakes his head, "no one. I don't need to ask anyone, anything. I'll be there."

"Okay, cool. I'll see you later, then." Liam smiles and runs the rest of the way to class, knowing that he's already late.

\--

Louis rings Liam's doorbell later that night and waits patiently as he listens to the loud laughter coming from inside. He knows that tonight is what he needs. He doesn't know how long it's been since he and Liam have had a guys' night, it was almost impossible for them to with Zayn always breathing down his neck. He needs to spend as much time as possible now with friends, to keep his mind off things. He's prepared for tonight to be a good night.

But that all changes when Liam opens the door and lets him inside. Sitting on the couch is, of course, Niall. But, sitting beside him is a tall, lanky, curly-headed boy who goes by the name of Harry. 

"Louis!" He exclaims when their eyes meet. "I didn't know you'd be here." 

Louis sends a glare Liam's way and Liam gives him a sheepish smile. "Yeah, neither did I." Liam goes to apologize but Louis cuts him off with an eye roll and a shake of the head and goes to sit on the floor, as far away from Harry as he can get.

 

The night carries on with tons of laughter and drinking - Liam's parents are away for their anniversary weekend. Louis tries his hardest not to let Harry ruin his night, tries not to let him suck the fun out of everything. He really doesn't want him to be here, but there's nothing he can really do about it now. It's not like he can just be like,  _hey I don't like you so I'd really appreciate it if you'd leave._ He's pretty sure Liam would disown him on the spot.

So, everything is going great, everybody is getting along. Well, that is until Louis has one too many drinks. Louis' tiny body can only handle so much alcohol, and when he has more than he can take, all hell breaks loose. He has no filter, whatsoever. A movie is playing in the background, but nobody is paying any attention to it, and Niall is about to make a joke, when Louis finally speaks up.

"You're good for me," he says, loud enough for Harry to hear. Everyone gets quiet and turns their attention towards Louis, all staring at him in confusion. He makes eye contact with Harry to make sure he knows Louis is talking to him. "I mean, that's what everyone keeps saying, so they have to be right. Correct?" Harry goes to speak, but Louis interrupts him. "But, how can someone I can't even trust with an ounce of my body, be good for me?"

"I- I don't-" Harry shrugs, getting cut off by Louis. 

"Everybody is praising you for doing what you did, but honestly, I don't understand what was so good about it. You ruined the best-" Louis cuts himself off with a burp, "the  _best_ relationship I've had, because you wanted to play superhero for a day. You're fucking selfish, you know that? Ruining relationships because you can't stand to see other people happy. You're pathetic."

"Louis," Liam tries to stop him, but Louis isn't listening.

" _I loved him!_ " Louis yells. "I  _still_ love him, and you can't handle that."

"Louis stop," Liam tries again.

"You were wrong. Just admit that you were wrong, and I'll stop."

"I'm not- I'm not going to do that," Harry refuses. 

Louis scoffs and shakes his head. "I'm going to bed," he mumbles and gets up from his spot on the floor and stumbles up the stairs to Liam's room. 

Not even five minutes later, he hears a knock on the door. "Leave me alone, Liam. I don't want to hear it." He yells into the pillow, hoping the person behind the door still heard him. 

The door opens anyways and clicks shut seconds later. "It's me," a deep voice says, and Louis rolls his eyes. Harry.

"What do you want?" He grumbles into the pillow. The bed moves and Louis assumes that Harry is now sitting down beside him. 

"I'm not going to apologize for what I did." Harry states, "because, I don't believe that I did anything wrong."

Louis sits up quickly at that and faces Harry. "You don't ever think you do anything wrong," Louis snaps. "You just think you're Mr. Perfect, don't you?"

"I never said that," Harry shakes his head.  "I'm just saying that I'm not going to apologize for getting you out of an abusive relationship."

" _Abusive,_ " Louis scoffs under his breath. "It wasn't- it wasn't like that. I did something wrong, and he hit me, that's how it works." He says, averting his eyes. He can never make eye contact with  _anyone_ while talking about this subject. He just can't. 

"But, it's not." Harry shakes his head sadly. "Relationships are about feeling loved and cared for. You're supposed to feel happy-"

"I was happy.  _I was happy!_ " Louis yells. " _You_ ruined that. Have you ever been in a relationship?" 

"No, but-"

"Then you have no room to talk about what a relationship is supposed to be like, because you don't know. You don't know, okay? You don't know that he tried to love me as much as he could. You don't know that every time he slipped up, he apologized for hours and  _hours,_ and I forgave him because I loved him, and I understood that  _I_ deserved it, because  _I_ did him wrong. You don't know that I was with him for four years,  _four years,_ Harry, and now that he's gone, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." Louis is choking on sobs at this point, "I don't- I don't know if I'm ever going to be okay again, I don't know if I-" he cuts off with a horrific sob and Harry takes him by the shoulders and brings him into his chest.  _  
_

"Shh, you're okay, it's okay." Harry soothes him. 

"I don't know what to do anymore," Louis sobs, his words muffled by Harry's shirt. 

"You're gonna be okay. You'll figure it out. Everything is going to be okay." Harry says softly. 

Harry rocks them back and forth until Louis' sobs subside almost ten minutes later. He makes to get up from the bed and exit the room, assuming that Louis probably doesn't want him there, but when he goes to move, he realizes that Louis' hands are clutching his shirt. "Are you okay?" He asks, worry coloring his tone. Louis shakes his head and Harry's eyebrows furrow in concern. "What's wrong?" Louis doesn't answer, just shakes his head again. Harry decides to leave it alone for now, and leave Louis to his thoughts; he'll talk about it when he's ready. But, he never ends up talking about it. Instead, another ten minutes later, Louis shifts his position until he's straddling Harry's thighs. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Harry's, and places each of his hands on Harry's shoulders. 

"What're you- what are you doing?" Harry asks, his hands frozen hovering over Louis' waist. Louis lets out a breath and the smell of alcohol travels up Harry's nose, reminding him just how drunk Louis is. He pushes on Louis' chest, trying to get him to move back, but he just grabs Harry's hands in his and shakes his head. 

"Don't," he whispers.

"Louis, you're dru-" Harry starts to protest, but suddenly Louis' lips are on his. He grunts in surprise, but eventually returns the kiss. He releases Louis' hands and rests his own on Louis' hips, and Louis takes this as a sign to keep moving forward. He moves his hands down to the hem of Harry's t-shirt, and Harry responds by lifting his arms up, allowing Louis to remove his shirt and throw it across the room. He pushes Harry into a laying position and removes his own shirt, attacking Harry's lips once more. It's when his hands wander down to the waistband of Harry's trousers, that he stops Louis. "Wait wait wait," he breathes out, pulling away. 

"What?" Louis grumbles, irritated. He moves his mouth to Harry's neck. 

"Louis,  _wait._ " Harry says more firmly once he feels Louis start to suck on his neck, pushing at his chest. Louis huffs out a breath and sits up, not moving from his position on Harry's waist, and crosses his arms, looking at Harry expectantly. "I'm not-  _no,_ we're not doing this while you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk," Louis counters. 

Harry lifts an eyebrow at him, but doesn't argue with him any further. "Even if you're not, you just got out of a really bad relationship; you're not thinking straight."

Louis stares at him without a word for a couple seconds, then grumbles under his breath and hops off the bed. He snatches his shirt up from the floor and pulls it over his body. Without another look back at Harry, he exits the room, slamming the door behind him. 

Harry lets out an exhale, running his hands down his face. He thought that tonight would go way better than this. When he saw Louis enter the house at the beginning of the night, he'd mentally prepared himself to sit down and have a talk with Louis and let them both settle everything that had happened between them. 

It looks like that conversation is going to have to wait a lot longer than Harry expected.

\--

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like with Larry interacting more now, in the story, it's becoming easier for me to write and get chapters out faster. So, be expecting more weekly updates. 
> 
> I really hope you guys are enjoying this. For everyone who read the version I posted before this, I hope that you guys see some improvement in the quality and the plot of the story. 
> 
> Leave a comment if you'd like! Enjoy! :)
> 
> (this took me almost two weeks to get out, im sorry. this is really short. im not really confident with this chapter.)

Usually when you get drunk off your ass, it's almost impossible to remember what happened the day before. The second you take that first shot of whiskey, every memory of what happens from that point on is long gone down the drain. You usually have to scramble around and find someone who was at least a little bit sober and ask them to explain to you what the hell happened the night before. Then, first comes the shock, and then the embarrassment, and then you just wish the ground would crumble beneath you and swallow you whole. 

But, for Louis, the embarrassment comes right away. He's always found it weird that no matter how smashed he gets, he never fails to remember  _every_ single detail of what happened the previous night.  _Every._ Detail. 

Confronting Harry. Yelling at Harry.  _Crying_ in front of Harry for what seems like the fiftieth time - Louis doesn't even think he's cried that much in front of his own mum. And then... coming onto Harry and throwing himself at him as if he would actually want Louis. Then, Harry pushing Louis away, claiming that he didn't want to "take advantage" of Louis while he was drunk. Yeah, right. What was Louis thinking? He should have known that Harry wouldn't want him in that way. He knows Zayn was right, Louis should have listened to him when he said that  _nobody is going to ever want you, but me._ He's used, he's broken, he's mentally fucked up - of course Harry doesn't want him.  _  
_

Louis doesn't want to get out of bed. He groans at the pounding in his head, the dryness of his mouth - only a few things on the long list reasons why he doesn't get drunk often. When he finally pries his eyes open and looks over at the clock on the bedside table, it reads  _1:58 P.M._ He doesn't know if anybody is awake yet, but he does know that he doesn't want to go check, in fear that he might run into Harry. God bless Liam for having a guest bedroom, he doesn't know what he would have done if he had to sleep downstairs with Harry after what happened. 

As Louis lays in bed, he wonders if Harry even  _remembers_ what happened. As far as Louis knows, Harry was drinking just as much as he was- if not more- so maybe,  _just maybe,_ he doesn't have any recollection of what happened last night. Louis can only hope. 

The urge to pee is what finally causes Louis to get out of bed twenty minutes later. He tiptoes to the bathroom when he peeks his head out of the guest bedroom and realizes that he is, in fact, the only person awake. He relieves himself and quietly goes downstairs to try and find something to make his headache go away, and maybe something to snack on. Just like he thought, he finds Harry sprawled out on the couch, mouth hung open, snoring away. He goes into the kitchen and opens all the cupboards until he finds Liam's medicine cabinet. It's filled with everything from Benadryl to Ibuprofen. He sighs in relief and shakes out a few caplets, popping them in his mouth and swallowing them dry. He opens the pantry and his mood brightens immediately when he lays his eyes on an almost empty bag of potato chips. Just as he's about to open the bag, the kitchen door opens behind him. He squeezes his eyes shut and prays to a God that he doesn't believe in that it's Liam or Niall. But, apparently God isn't on his side today.

"What time is it?" 

Louis rolls his eyes and exhales and irritatedly places the chips back where he found them. He's not sure if he's more angry with the fact that he never even got to eat any of them, or the fact that he has to face Harry in about two seconds.

"Two in the afternoon," Louis mumbles, turning around, but not making eye contact with Harry. He walks over to the sink and fills up and glass with water and slowly drinks it, trying to occupy himself. 

He watches as Harry walks over to the counter he was just standing at and opens the potato chips. Louis glares at him.  _Those were supposed to be mine,_ he thinks. They both stand in awkward silence - Louis not wanting to bring up anything from last night, just in case Harry doesn't remember. 

But, of course...

"Louis," Harry sighs. "About last night..." he trails off. 

"Don't," Louis shakes his head, holding up a hand. "I don't want to talk about it, it was stupid. Don't worry about it."

"I didn't- it wasn't my intention to hurt your feelings."

Louis scoffs, "you didn't hurt my feelings. I'm fine." 

"It's just- you were drunk. I didn't want you to feel like I was taking advantage of you." Harry tries to explain himself. 

"Harry," Louis snaps, finally looking up at him. His curls are sticking up every which way, his green eyes are bright under his heavy eyelids, and he's wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. The same pair of jeans that Louis tried to unbutton last night. "I said don't worry about it. I'm  _fine._ "

"You didn't seem so fine last night."

"I was drunk," Louis uses as an excuse. "I didn't know what I was saying, so let's just forget about it, yeah?" He tries to get past Harry to walk out of the kitchen, but he stops Louis by grabbing his wrist.

"Can you please talk to me?" He asks with pleading eyes.

"I don't have anything to say to you. I thought I made that clear when I told you that I  _hate_ you. Do you understand the concept of those words, or do I need to say it to you again?  _I hate you._ " Louis knows that Harry can tell he's lying, by the tremor in his voice, but he stands his ground anyways, not breaking Harry's gaze.  _  
_

"I know that's not true," Harry says quietly.

"You think you know everything, don't you? Well, news flash, you don't. Just- stay the hell away from me." He tries to leave the kitchen again, but Harry still has a tight grip on his wrist, refusing to let Louis go. "Let go of me," he growls.

Harry shakes his head stubbornly. "You're scared."

Louis narrows his eyes, "I'm not scared of you," 

"You're scared that no one else is going to want you. You're scared that no one else is going to to love you. You're scared because he's convinced you that what he's done to you is considered love. But, that's not true."

"What do you know?" 

Harry shrugs with a sigh, "I guess, nothing." He lets go of Louis' arm and walks out of the kitchen, leaving Louis to think about their conversation.

\--

Louis takes the longest routes possible to get to his classes, he changes the location in which he eats lunch, and he sits in the front of almost all of his classes to keep himself focused on everything but Harry. 

Ever since the incident at Liam's house, Harry is all that Louis has been able to think about. It's been three days and it seems like no matter what Louis does to try to distract himself, his mind always wanders back to curly-headed boys with green eyes. His mind has been filled with endless thoughts of soft, pink lips, curly brown hair, large hands, defined abs and butterfly tattoos. Louis hates it.

Any talk of Harry from Liam has been avoided, but that still doesn't stop what is going on up in Louis' head. He can't forget about the way that Harry's hands felt gripping his waist, he can't forget about the way that Harry's mouth felt on his own, he can't forget about the way that Harry's body felt under his. And the worst part about it - the one thing that Louis hates to admit the most - is that he liked it.

He doesn't know if it's because Harry is the first person who has touched and kissed him in four years, aside from Zayn. Or, if it's because of the fact that it was  _Harry._

Louis doesn't even want to think about the possibility of liking kissing Harry. That'd be wrong. Harry  _hurt_ him - he trusted Harry with something huge that was happening in his life and Harry went behind his back and told someone. Harry practically ended the longest and only serious relationship that Louis has had. You can't  _like_ someone who does that, you can't just forgive someone for something like that... right?

\--

Harry isn't going to give in. He isn't going to let pretty blue eyes, and soft lips convince him that what he did was wrong. Harry isn't going to let the words  _I'm sorry_ fall from his mouth, because he knows that he doesn't have a reason to be. He knows that what he did was the right thing to do, and he's going to stand by that, even if it means having to deal with Louis hating him for the rest of his life.

He just needs, he  _needs_ Louis to understand what is right and what is wrong, here. He needs Louis to realize that Harry was just looking out for him, because he  _cares._ He cares about Louis more than anyone he's ever known - besides his mum - and, honestly, that's scary. Because all that Harry finds himself doing most of the time is  _stressing_ and  _worrying._

_Where is Louis? Is Louis okay? Who is he with? Is he safe? Is he hurt?_

It's been taking over his life, these thoughts. And, all because of some guy, some  _coward,_ who has his head too far up his ass to differentiate the meanings between love and hate. All because of some guy who thinks it's okay to put his hands on people, after telling them he loves them. 

Harry saw, he  _sees,_ how broken Louis was and is. It kills him to see Louis walking around campus with his shoulders slumped, his head hung low, his sad eyes never making eye contact with anybody. To anyone else, it may seem like Louis doesn't want to talk to anybody, that he just really hates school. But Harry knows, he  _knows,_ how much Louis is hurting. He knows what Louis has been through, and is still going through - regardless of him and Zayn breaking up, he's still there, and he can still attack at any given moment.

Harry really hopes that Louis will eventually understand what he was trying to do. He really hopes that he will eventually get through to Louis. He really hopes that Louis will let Harry in, so he can try to help him. 

Harry hopes for a lot of things. 

\--

Harry suddenly remembers something as he's laying on his bed, staring at nothing but the ceiling. His eyes widen and he scrambles off his bed, over to his backpack in the corner of his room - usually the first place he throws it when he comes home from school everyday. He digs to the bottom of it, and curses under his breath when he doesn't find the thing that he is looking for. That is until his hand comes across a small piece of paper, buried under endless worksheets, notebooks and pencils. He pulls it out, praying that it is what he thinks it is, and when he unfolds it and sees a phone number written across it, he thanks himself for being too lazy to ever clean out his backpack. 

He jumps back on his bed to grab his phone and opens a new text message, typing in the phone number. 

_hey it's harry, you gave me ur number at the beginning of the year?_ He types out, and waits for a response. He barely sets his phone back down on the bed, before it's vibrating again. 

_Harry! I was wondering when your were going to put my number to use ;) how are you?_

_im good but i was wondering if you had lou's #?_ He responds, getting straight to the point - he doesn't want to actually have a  _conversation_ with Eleanor. He doesn't want her to think that he could actually be interested. He may be bisexual, but Eleanor is definitely not his type.

_Sure, why do you need it?_ She responds, but not as quickly as before. 

He doesn't think that she'll give him Louis' number, if his only reason is  _I just need to talk to him,_ so he lies:  _him and i made plans to hangout and i forgot to get his number i just need to clarify some things with him_

Eleanor texts back with his number, and Harry only responds with a simple  _thank you,_ and he's pretty sure that's the last time that they're ever going to talk to each other - he doesn't even bother saving her number in his phone. 

Being impatient, Harry calls Louis instead of texting him, because he doesn't feel like waiting even two minutes for a response. Louis picks up on the third ring and doesn't even bother with saying a simple  _hello._ " _Who is this?_ " He asks in a confused tone.

"Hey, it's me." He responds, knowing that Louis will probably recognize his voice. He hears Louis sigh from the other end of the phone - indicating that he does, in fact, know who it is. 

" _You're getting really annoying,_ " he says flatly. 

"So, I've been told." Harry states. The two boys get quiet and then Louis sighs again.

" _Well, I'm hanging up now._ "

"No, I  _need_  to talk to you, Louis, don't hang up, please." Harry pleads, not even trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. Louis gets quiet on the other line, and Harry pulls his phone away from his head to make sure that Louis didn't hang up. When he sees that he didn't, he puts the phone up to his ear again to find that Louis has already started talking. 

" _-do I have to tell you that I don't want anything to do with you. We don't have_ anything  _to talk about, we've already said what needs to be said_." Louis rants. 

"Can you at least just hear me out?" Harry asks, starting to get frustrated with Louis' stubbornness.

" _I already_ have _, Harry!_ " Louis practically yells. " _I don't think you understand that what you did is unforgivable!_ " 

"And, I don't think you understand that I was just trying to help you!" Harry yells back. 

Louis gets quiet, once again, nothing but his breathing and a bit of background noise being heard on the other line. " _Why would you want to help me?_ " Harry hears him whisper. 

"I don't want to talk about this over the phone, Louis. Just- come over, meet me up somewhere, I don't care. I need you to hear my side of the story." Harry says softly, his voice quieting as well. 

Louis hesitates. " _Text me your address and I'll be right over,_ " he says, hanging up the phone without waiting for Harry to respond. 

Harry follows his orders and sends him his address. Harry goes downstairs to see if his mum or Robin are home; he finds Robin lounging on the couch, watching a re-run of Top Gear. He passes through the living room to the kitchen with a simple  _hello._ He doesn't bother asking him if he can have a friend over, he always finds it weird asking Robin for permission, because he feels that he doesn't need to- seeing as Robin isn't his real dad. He'll just send his mum a quick text when he gets back to his room, informing her that he'll be having company over. 

Harry grabs a water bottle and a couple strawberries out of the fridge, popping one into his mouth on his way out of the kitchen. He closes his bedroom door behind him when he gets back to his room, shooting his mum a text and sending Louis one while he's at it, telling him to just come inside when he gets here.  

Just as he's laying down and absentmindedly nibbling on a strawberry, his bedroom door opens. He looks up to see Louis hesitantly venturing into his room. "Your dad told me to just come up here," he explains. 

"Step-dad," Harry corrects him, sitting up. He tosses the half eaten strawberry into the bin next to his nightstand. He watches as Louis stands awkwardly in his doorway, surveying his room with curious eyes. There's nothing really special about Harry's room, it looks like any normal seventeen year old's room - messy floors, posters on walls, etc. "You can sit down, you know." Harry tells him. Louis nods and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. 

Harry sighs at his actions but doesn't say anything. He's lucky that Louis is even here in the first place. 

"Why did you feel the need to tell my  _mum..._ out of all people?" Louis breaks the silence. 

Harry shrugs, "she was there. I assume that you care about her a lot, and that she feels the same. Why  _wouldn't_ you want her to know? I mean," Harry adds when Louis opens his mouth to speak. "I understand that it was a big deal for you, and that you didn't want anyone knowing. But... she's your mum, Louis. She is the one person who worries about your safety more than anyone- she  _deserved_ to know." He explains, "you were getting hurt, I just- she needed to know."

Louis just looks down and shakes his head, swinging his feet back and forth - his legs too short to touch the ground.

"I can see if I told Liam, or maybe Niall," Harry continues. "I could understand why you would've been upset with me, then. But, she just-" Harry cuts himself off and shrugs. 

"I just don't understand why you cared enough to tell her," Louis whispers. 

"What did you expect me to do?" Harry asks in disbelief. Louis shrugs. "I saw the way you were during school. I saw the way people treated you. I  _heard_ the things people said about you. I wasn't going to be one of those people, Louis. I wasn't going to be  _that_ person who finds out something huge about someone and then just- acts like nothing happened. I could tell that you needed someone. I mean, yeah, you have Liam. But, Liam didn't know.  _I_ did. I cared enough to tell her because I cared enough about you to know that you deserved better than what you were getting."

Louis closes his eyes and hangs his head.

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that somebody cares about you?" Harry asks in exasperation. 

" _Because,_ " Louis snaps, looking Harry in the eye for the first time since he got there. There are tears in his eyes. "I am incapable of being loved. I am  _used_ and I am  _broken._ I have gotten my ass beat countless times, by a man who I thought  _loved me._  I am mentally  _fucked up!_ " He sobs. 

"Your mum, she cares about you. Any siblings you have, they care about you, I'm sure. Liam, Niall- they care about you more than you know;  _especially_  Liam. Louis, I-  _I_ care about you. I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I didn't. I wouldn't have risked you hating me, if I didn't." Harry says softly. "You have so many people standing behind you. One guy, one  _stupid_ guy, isn't going to change that, regardless of what you think."

"I don't know what I did to deserve all of this," Louis sobs. 

Harry leans forward and grabs Louis' arm, tugging on it to get him to scoot back further onto the bed. He does, and allows himself to be pulled back into Harry's chest. Harry must have gotten through to him, if he's allowing Harry to hold him like this. 

"None of this is your fault, okay? Everything that happened is on him.  _He_ is the one who hurt  _you._ " 

"But, if I would have never made him mad, he would've never-" Louis starts rambling. 

"Louis," Harry  interrupts him in a firm voice. "Couples get mad at each other - that's normal. The way he handled it is what was wrong."

Louis doesn't respond, so Harry doesn't say anything else. The two boys stay cuddled up on Harry's bed for another twenty minutes. Harry feels his eyes starting to get heavy and he begins to doze off when he hears Louis' voice. 

"I'm sorry," he apologizes in a sleepy voice. "I'm sorry for getting mad at you. I'm sorry for hitting your chest," he pets Harry's chest. "I'm sorry for yelling at you. I'm sorry for- for kissing you."

"It's okay," Harry whispers, rubbing Louis' back.

Not even a minute later, Harry feels Louis' body completely relax, indicating that he's fallen asleep. Harry sees this as an opportunity to do the same. He lays back, bringing Louis down with him. Louis shifts, but doesn't wake up, and Harry finds himself drifting off to sleep only seconds later. 

\--

Louis and Harry find themselves growing closer than ever as the weeks pass. At first, it was a bit awkward- Louis not being used to inviting new people into his life, seeing as Zayn always prevented him from doing so.  _Why do you need anybody else, am I not good enough for you?_ But, once he got used to the idea of having Harry in his life, he started wondering to himself  _why_ he ever hated the kid.

Harry is funny, charming, and all types of sweet - pretty much everything Louis could ever want in a friend. Not that Liam isn't enough, but Louis believes that change is good for him. Liam is the one and only close friend that Louis has had since grade school, so for him to have someone new, someone different, in his life- it's pretty exciting.

Louis already knows that his mum approves of the new addition in his life, because he makes Louis happy (well, as happy as Louis can be). There's not a moment when him and Harry are together that he's not making Louis laugh, or at least attempting to. His knock-knock jokes are the worst, but they're so bad that you can't just  _not_ laugh at them. 

When the two boys aren't together- which is almost never - they're either texting, calling, or skyping. The two of them are so inseparable that even Liam has admitted his jealousy once or twice (but Louis was quick to assure him that no one could ever replace him). Even Harry's mum was once worried that he was neglecting his schoolwork for Louis, but Harry told her that that is never going to happen- he cares about his education too much for that to happen.

Neither of them bring up the kiss, which Louis is grateful for. He hates it when people bring up his drunken mistakes just for the sake of embarrassing him. He knows that Harry would never try to make him feel bad about himself on purpose, but he's still glad that he doesn't bring it up anyways. It doesn't change the fact that Louis doesn't still think about it from time to time. Can you blame him? 

The whole time that him and Harry have been hanging out, Louis hasn't thought once about contacting Zayn. Harry is the best distraction that Louis could ever ask for. He makes Louis forget about anything and everything that's ever happened to him, and nobody- not even Liam - has been able to do that. Harry is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to him. 

 

But, as the saying goes: all good things must come to an end. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why I envision Harry to look like 19 year old TMH era Harry even though he's supposed to be 17. Just bare (bear?) with me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so sorry this took me so long to update! I've been working a lot and looking for a second job, so I've been really distracted for the past couple of weeks. I'm sorry if this is really short. I don't really know yet, I'm typing this before I start the chapter.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you'd like! :) Enjoy!

Harry wakes up one weekend with the idea of taking Louis out to dinner that night. Not in a romantic type of way- he knows that's not what Louis wants or needs right now - but, in a friendly type of way. Just two friends having a meal together, he knows  _that_ is what Louis needs right now. Harry knows it's what he deserves, especially after everything he's been through in the last couple of weeks. The past couple of  _years._

He sends Louis a text, telling him to  _be ready by seven :)_ and leaves it at that. He calls the restaurant that he wants to take Louis to. To his delight, there are still a couple of tables left for the night, and he makes a reservation for eight o'clock. He relieves himself in the bathroom and runs downstairs just in time to say goodbye to his mum and Robin, as they make their way out of the house to head to work. He ventures into the kitchen and grabs an apple from the refrigerator, trying to eat healthier today after eating five slices of pizza last night. He bites into the fruit and scrunches his face up at the sourness. He hates it when Robin buys Granny Smith apples.

When Harry gets back to his room, he sees that he has a text from Louis. It reads:  _why?_ and right when he goes to reply, his phone starts vibrating in his hand, signaling an incoming call from Louis himself. Harry answers the call and brings the phone up to his ear.

" _Why do you want me to be ready by seven?"_ He's asking before Harry can even get a word in. " _Where are we going?_ ' 

"Just make sure you're ready by seven," Harry responds vaguely, not wanting to give anything away.

" _You can't at least give me a hint?_ " 

"Nope. No hints," Harry shakes his head, chuckling. 

" _Why do-?_ " Louis starts to ask, but cuts himself off. Harry takes the phone away from his ear to make sure the call didn't get disconnected - his cellphone tends to drop calls more than it should. It didn't. 

"Lou?" He asks worriedly. He hears sigh in what sounds like relief. "What's wrong?" 

" _It's just Liam,_ " he sighs. " _Hey, Li!_ " He calls out, hearing Liam say a hello back. " _I forgot I left the door unlocked after mum left, I need to stop doing that,_ " he says, speaking to Harry again.

"Are you okay?" Harry asks, hearing the strain in Louis' voice. 

" _Yeah,_ " he breathes. " _I just- he always had a tendency to barge into the house without knocking. I thought it was him._ " 

Harry doesn't need to ask who he's talking about. He already knows. He hates that Louis still feels so on edge. That even after a month of no contact with Zayn, he still feels like he needs to spend every second of his life watching his back, in fear that Zayn is going to come back. This is why Harry is taking him out tonight. Louis needs to do something besides worrying constantly. He needs to do something to take his mind off everything. He needs to relax for once in his life. 

"I'll be by to pick you up at seven, okay?" Harry reminds Louis when he gets quiet. 

" _How are you, uh- how're you gonna get here?_ " Louis asks, his voice shaking. 

"Louis," Harry says softly. "Calm down, you are okay. He's gone, he can't hurt you anymore." 

"You don't know that," Louis half laughs, half sobs. 

"I do," Harry says firmly. "I do know that, because I will not let him hurt you again. I  _refuse_ to let him hurt you again." He says, suddenly feeling a fierce protectiveness over Louis. "Okay?" 

" _Okay_ ," Louis whispers after a brief pause. _  
_

"Mum should be home from work before seven, so I'll use her car to pick you up." Harry informs him. 

" _No, no. I'll, uh- don't worry about that. I'll come pick you_ _up,_ " Louis offers. " _I t_ _hink I still have your address in my messages from last time. I don't want you stressing about your mum not getting home on time._ " 

"Okay, I'll see you later, then." 

" _Yeah, okay._ " Louis says and hangs up without saying goodbye. 

Harry rolls his eyes. Not at Louis, but at the fact that Louis is constantly stressed over just the thought of Zayn. He wishes that he would've met Louis before Louis met Zayn. He wishes that he could've been the one to give Louis warning signs about Zayn. He wishes that he could have been there to protect Louis from anything and anyone that wanted to bring harm to him. He wishes he could have saved Louis from all of the physical and emotional pain that he went through. But he can't rewind time, he can't erase everything that's been done. And for some reason, even though Harry didn't know Louis at the time, he still feels  _really_ guilty for not being there for him when he needed it. 

Out of frustration, Harry throws the first thing he can get his hands on, which happens to be his phone. He watches as it slams against the wall and falls to the floor with an audible  _crack._ He immediately regrets it. He scurries over to the other side of his room and slowly turns over his phone, praying that it's only a little damaged. But as luck would have it, the whole front of his phone is shattered.  _Shit,_ he thinks.  _Mum is definitely not going to be happy about this._ He presses the power button over and over, hoping that it still works and he'll just have to pay for a screen repair. The screen remains black. " _Fuck,_ " he curses, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity and tosses the useless device onto his desk. 

Harry sighs and throws himself face down onto his bed, knowing that he still has hours before Louis should be here. He closes his eyes and is asleep within minutes. 

\---

What seem like just minutes later, the doorbell is ringing. Harry groans in annoyance and drags himself out of bed. He groggily clomps down the stairs and through the living room and opens the front door right as the doorbell rings again. He squints in confusion when he sees Louis standing in front of him wearing a graphic tee with a black blazer thrown on over it. Casual and classy. Nice. Harry rubs his eyes sleepily. 

"I thought you said you were going to be here at seven," he says, still half asleep and confused. 

"I did." Louis says in amusement. "And, here I am."

"What?" Harry groans. "It's only," he turns around and looks at the clock on the table next to the couch.  _7:04P.M._ "Seven o'clock," he sighs. "I'm sorry, I fell asleep and didn't realize how long I had been sleeping."

"It's okay," Louis assures him. "I sent you a text earlier saying I was on my way over." He makes his way into the house when Harry moves to the side to let him in. 

"I must've not gotten it," Harry states, closing the door, momentarily forgetting that he no longer has a working phone. He leads Louis through the living room and to the couch, gesturing for him to sit down. "I'll go up and get ready real quick. I shouldn't be longer than twenty minutes."

He runs up the stairs and straight to the bathroom to take a quick shower. He quickly runs a soapy washcloth over his body and some shampoo through his hair. Spending no longer than ten minutes in the shower, he gets out and uses a blow dryer and a brush on his unruly curly hair – he really needs to get a haircut soon. Once his hair is styled to his satisfaction, he scurries to his bedroom in nothing but a towel and throws on a pair of black skinny jeans and a plain black button up shirt, buttoning it up all the way to the top. For a second, he thinks about just wearing a t-shirt and a blazer, but after seeing Louis sporting that look, he doesn’t think he’ll ever look half as good as Louis does tonight. After quickly brushing his teeth and checking himself in the mirror one last time, Harry heads downstairs to find Louis standing in front of the fireplace, looking at the pictures that his mum has neatly placed on the mantelpiece.

Without looking up, Louis asks, “Is this your sister?”

Harry walks over and looks at the picture that Louis is pointing at. It’s a picture of him, his mum and Gemma. They’re all standing behind an SUV with the trunk wide open, all of Gemma’s stuff packed into the back. You can’t see it in the picture, but Harry knows that his mum had been trying to hold back tears in that moment. That was the day that Gemma was leaving for college. She had decided that she wanted to be truly independent and move to the states for school. That was almost two years ago. She’s only been home once since.

“Erm, yeah. That’s Gemma.”

“She’s pretty,” Louis comments looking up at Harry. “You both look so much like your mum.”

“Yeah, she is.” He agrees, looking longingly at the picture. He _really_ misses his sister. He shakes himself and clears his throat, not wanting to get too emotional over the topic of his older sister. “Are you ready to go?”

Louis nods and smiles, walking over and grabbing his keys and wallet from the coffee table. Harry slips on a pair of black heeled boots by the front door and walks out of the house after Louis, closing and locking the door behind him.

Harry then remembers that Louis has no idea where they are going, so he calls out his name and holds out his hand. “Keys,” he says simply. Louis looks at him in confusion and then looks down at his keys. His eyes widen in realization and he tosses the keys to Harry, earning him a _thanks_ and a smile. The two boys slide into the car and Harry drives off to the restaurant he made a reservation at.

Only a couple of seconds of silence pass before Louis’ curiosity gets the best of him. “So,” he begins. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” He asks. Harry thinks Louis stopped trying to hold in his excitement a long time ago, if the smile on his face is anything to go by. He honestly looks like a little kid on Christmas who just opened up a toy racecar that he’s been asking his mum for, for months.

“It’s a surprise,” Harry smirks, glancing over at the boy who is literally bouncing in his seat with anticipation.

“I don’t like surprises,” Louis pouts.

“I don’t believe that.” Harry says accusingly, taking his eyes off the road once more.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Styles. I’m too young to die,” Louis comments on his reckless actions. “And, it’s true. I really don’t like surprises.”

When Harry looks over at him again, which earns him a quick glare, Louis has his arms crossed over his chest and is slouched down in his seat. Harry slaps his shoulder lightly. “Hey, stop pouting.”

“Well, maybe you should tell me where we’re going.” Louis retorts.

Harry chuckles, “pouting isn’t going to make me tell you.”

“Fine,” Louis huffs. He rests his head against the window; arms still crossed, and pokes his lips out in a pout. He can’t control the blush that creeps up his neck when Harry makes a comment about him being _so adorable when you pout._ He doesn’t comment on it, just tries to play it off by grumbling: “shut up, I’m not talking to you.”

“Then I guess I won’t tell you that we’re here,” Harry muses. Louis’ eyes fly open and his head snaps up to look out the window. Harry has the car parked outside of a classy looking restaurant, large letters on the front of the building spelling out _Ziniz._ Louis gasps, “Harry.” He’s never been to this restaurant before, but going off of what he’s heard, it’s extremely expensive. Nothing that he would ever be able to afford himself.

Harry turns off the car and gets out, walking around to Louis’ door and opening it for him. Louis looks up at the restaurant, a look of wonder on his face. He starts shaking his head when Harry grabs his hand and coaxes him out of the car. “No, you- we’re not eating here.” He says frantically to Harry. The curly-haired boy starts to protest, but Louis stops him. “Harry, this place is _way_ too expensive. Let’s go- I don’t know, eat at McDonald’s, or something. Anywhere else, but please not here.”

Harry closes Louis’ door behind him and grabs both of his hands. “Louis, please let me do this.”

Louis ponders it for a moment and then sighs in defeat. “Fine. But, I’m going to find a way to pay you back for this, don’t think I won’t.”

Harry just chuckles and shakes head, leading Louis by the hand into the building. They walk up to the hostess standing by the door and return the smile she gives them when they walk in. Harry informs her of the reservations he made and waits patiently while she finds his name on the clipboard in front of her. He glances over at Louis momentarily and catches him looking around the restaurant wide-eyed. He’s so adorable without even trying.

“Okay, come with me!” The girl exclaims, bringing Harry out of his thoughts. He tugs on Louis’ arm to get his attention and the two boys follow her to their seat. The table they’re seated at is nicely set up with a vase in the middle, with a single rose in it. The light hanging above the table is at a dim setting. It almost feels as if this is a date. Harry pushes that thought to the back of his mind. He’s simply here because Louis needs to get his mind off of everything, that’s it. Harry and Louis take their seats and the hostess hands them their menus and leaves them with a “your waiter will be with you shortly, enjoy your dinner, gentlemen.”

They both search the menu for anything that sounds or looks appetizing. Harry really wishes that they would put pictures next to every one of the meal choices, so he’d at least have an idea of what he was going to eat before he ate it. But, no such luck and seeing as neither of them have been here before, they don't know what's good and what's not. 

From his peripheral vision, Harry sees Louis lower his menu slightly and begin to stare at Harry, obviously thinking that he isn't looking. Harry smirks from behind his own menu as Louis continues to look at him. After several seconds, he lowers his menu and looks back at Louis. "May I help you?" He asks, still smirking. Louis' eyes widen and he lifts his menu back up, his face turning a deep red. Harry laughs quietly, shaking his head and turns his attention back to his menu. 

After a couple minutes of silence, Louis says something. Harry's eyes peek over his menu and he raises his eyebrows in question. "Nevermind, forget I asked." Louis shakes his head. 

"No, stop. I didn't hear what you said." 

Louis sighs, "I asked you why you brought me here." 

Harry tilts his head to the side. "When's the last time you were at a place like this?" He asks, not directly answering Louis' question, to Louis' frustration. 

"Never," Louis mutters.

"Never?" Harry asks in astonishment. Louis nods. "You mean to tell me that  _he_ never took you out?"

Louis shakes his head, but then pauses. "Well, yeah. Once. But, nowhere near as nice as...this." He says, gesturing around them. 

"Only once?"

Louis shrugs, not making eye contact with Harry. "He never really saw the point in going out somewhere fancy to show how much you love someone."

"Do you agree with that?"

"No," Louis shakes his head. "Not really."

"Everyone," Harry says firmly, his tone making Louis look him in the eye. "Deserves to be given the world and to be treated like a king or a queen."  _Especially you,_ he thinks, but doesn't say it out loud. 

Louis looks down at his lap again and nods. But, before he can respond, their waitress is approaching their table with a small notepad, ready to take their order. She asks if they'd like to start with any appetizers and the two boys look at each other and shake their heads, both of them knowing if they order an appetizer, they won't have enough room for their actual meal. Harry orders a plate of Fettuccine Alfredo, not wanting to go too far off the menu and ending up not liking what he ordered. Louis is a little more brave with his order, and gets a plate of Baked Mushroom Risotto. They both get a water with their meals, neither of them in the mood for soda. 

She leaves with a smile and a  _your meals will be ready shortly, gentlemen._ Harry and Louis begin talking about their childhoods, taking this chance together to actually get to know one another. Harry talks about what it was like growing up in Holmes Chapel and explains the situation about his mum remarrying, and exactly why he had to move to Doncaster. He talks about his family, and goes into a little bit more detail about Gemma. Louis, in return, tells Harry about his childhood growing up and his mum and younger sister. It saddens Harry to hear Louis talk about his childhood, and how happy he was growing up. Because, seeing him now, Harry knows that this is not how he always used to be. It's clear that Zayn sucked all the life and happiness out of him and left nothing but sadness in Louis' eyes. When Harry looks at him, he can see a bright, blue-eyed little boy deep inside, desperate to find his way out. All Harry wants to do is see Louis smile and laugh again like he knows he used to. He wants to see him _happy_ again. 

Before they know it, their food is being delivered to their table. Harry takes one look at his plate and his mouth is already watering. It smells delicious. He picks up his fork and takes a bite and moans around his fork. "Oh,  _God._ This is delicious." Even though it's just Fettuccine Alfredo, something he's eaten at home plenty of times before, it always seems to taste a thousand times better when it's made by a professional.

He looks up to see Louis take, what he assumes is, his first bite. Louis has the same exact reaction Harry did, closing his eyes in pleasure. Harry chuckles, making Louis' eyes snap open. "Good?" He asks with raised eyebrow. 

" _Amazing,_ " Louis nods. "I never thought I'd like something like this. I've never really been a big fan of mushrooms, really. But, this- this is delicious." He says, taking another bite. 

"You mind if I steal a bite?" Harry asks jokingly. Louis surprises him by picking up his spoon and scooping up some of the creamy rice and mushrooms. He holds his other hand other the spoon, careful not to spill it, and offers it to Harry over the table. Instead of taking it from Louis with his hands, like he assumes Louis wants him to do, he leans forward and wraps his lips around the spoon, taking the food from it. Louis' eyes widen at his actions, but he doesn't comment on it, just watches Harry as he slowly chews the food with a thoughtful expression. Louis raises his eyebrows in question and Harry nods, "so good."

They continue with this for the rest of the night, neither of them even really eating their own food, instead feeding it to each other. Once they've finished their meals and Harry pays the bill - only to hear Louis tell him thank you a million and one times for doing this for him - they go out to Louis' car, Louis driving this time upon his request, and make their way back to Harry's house. 

The car gets quiet when they pull into Harry's driveway. Anne's car is parked in it's usual spot, and Louis is parked where Robin's car would usually be.  _He must be working late again tonight,_ Harry thinks to himself. Harry looks up at the house and sees that all of the lights are off, indicating that his mum is already sleeping. He then looks at the clock on the radio and sees that it's already almost eleven p.m. Harry takes off his seatbelt and is about to say his goodbye's, when he thinks of something. "What are you doing?" He asks Louis. 

Louis looks at him in confusion. "I'm sitting in my car?" He says it as more of a question than a statement.

"No," Harry laughs. "I mean, what are you doing after this?" 

"Oh, I, erm- probably just gonna go home. Watch a movie, maybe. Why?"

"Well, why do it alone? Do you wanna maybe- I don't know, come inside?" Harry asks, suddenly nervous about the thought of inviting Louis into his house. He has to quickly remind himself that this isn't a date of any sorts, him and Louis are just friends, he's only doing this to help Louis and keep his mind off of things. That's it. 

Louis agrees with a grin, taking his keys from the ignition and following Harry up to his house. Harry tries to be quiet as possible when entering the house, careful not to wake him mum up. He leads Louis upstairs to his bedroom and rummages through his dresser drawers to find a pair of old pajama pants and a t-shirt, trying to find something smaller that might fit Louis. He finds a pair of flannel pants that he bought a couple of years ago and offers them to Louis. Louis takes them with a smile and a  _thank you_ and scurries off to the bathroom to get changed. Harry does the same, changing into a pair of grey sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. 

He meets Louis downstairs and, as cheesy as it is, his heart skips a beat when he sees Louis coming down the stairs in his clothes. Even though he tried to find the smallest clothes in his wardrobe, Louis is still drowning in Harry's t-shirt. And, even though the shirt is covering it, Harry is pretty sure that Louis had to roll over the waistline of the pants to get them to fit onto his short legs.

Harry swallows and looks away, telling Louis to pick a movie from the collection of DVD's that Harry's mum has collected over the years. Louis comes up from the bottom shelf of the entertainment center with a sheepish smile. To Harry's surprise and enjoyment, Louis is holding  _Love Actually_ in his hand. "Lucky for you, that happens to be one of my favorite movies." Harry states, making Louis smile. He inserts the disc into the DVD player and walks over to turn off the light switch. He sits down on the couch, seemingly as far away from Harry as possible. Harry chooses not to comment on it. 

Only twenty minutes into the movie, Harry finds himself wanting to look over at Louis. He does. He catches Louis already looking at him, causing him to look down quickly and Harry's pretty sure if it wasn't dark in the room, he would see Louis' neck and face flushing bright red. 

"If you want to cuddle, all you have to do is ask." Harry says teasingly, smirking. 

He hears Louis huff, but he doesn't move from his spot and Harry looks over to see him now looking at the television screen. Harry doesn't say anything, just continues to watch the movie himself. 

And, if two minutes later, his heart flutters in his chest when he feels the couch move and a small body curl into his, well..nobody has to know.

\-- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan on finishing this before I start college, which is in September. So, don't let this long break scare you! It just means a lot of updates in the next couple of weeks.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 months. I am a horrible person, I know. I know I said to expect more updates within the next couple of months but I just...I've been so busy lately with getting ready for college and working. I'm so sorry for making you wait this long, I _promise_ you that this will never happen again. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. Leave a comment if you'd like! :)
> 
> Update: It's been 3 months...soz.

Harry wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night. He sits up in his bed and grabs his cell phone from the bedside table, squinting his eyes when the bright screen turns on.  _2:18 A.M,_ it reads. Harry groans and lays back down with plans to fall right back to sleep, but then he notices something doesn't feel right. He furrows his eyebrows and sits up again and looks over to the right side of the bed, only to see that Louis isn't laying next to him. Harry assumes that he's probably just in the bathroom, so he lays back down and buries his face into his pillow. 

Ten minutes pass, and Harry starts to worry because Louis still hasn't come back to bed, yet. He gives him another five minutes, and when he still doesn't come back, Harry slides out of bed and ventures down the hall to the bathroom. 

He knocks on the door lightly, "Lou?" 

No answer.

"Louis," he calls again, knocking once more.

Still no answer.

He sighs and tries the door knob, but to his despair, it's locked. Harry furrows his brow and jiggles the door knob again, pushing on the door with his shoulder. Panic courses through him when the door doesn't budge. " _Louis._ " Harry bangs on the door with his fist, hoping maybe that will make Louis respond to him. It doesn't.

His mum decides to come out of her room at this time, dragging her feet across the floor. Harry feels bad for waking her up this early in the morning. "What's going on, Harry?" She asks, rubbing a hand down her face. 

"I don't- I don't really know. Can you go downstairs and get the key to this bathroom for me, please? The door won't open." He asks, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. 

Anne lets out a breath, but nods anyways. She trudges her way down the stairs, and Harry really wishes she would hurry up because he's really starting to worry about Louis. He continues to call Louis' name through the door, hoping that one of these times that he'll finally answer. Anne finally makes her way back up the stairs with the key and hands it to her son, giving him a kiss on the cheek and bidding him a goodnight. 

Harry inserts the key into the door and when he eventually gets it open, his heart stops. 

Louis is sitting on the floor, up against the bathtub, a blank expression on his face. His whole body is visibly trembling, and in one hand he is holding a razor blade, and the opposite arm is covered in blood. 

" _Fuck,_ " Harry breathes out, rushing over to Louis. His hands shake as he takes the blade out of Louis' hand and flushes it down the toilet. He turns on the bathtub and coaxes Louis to turn towards the bathtub and runs his hands and arms under the water, watching the blood wash down the drain. He turns the water off and grabs a towel to dry him and Louis off and then opens the cabinet under the sink and grabs the first aid kit. He finds the bandages and wraps up Louis' arm all the way up to his elbow, cutting it off and pinning it down.  _  
_

Louis still has the same expression on his face, eyes glassy and not focused on anything in particular. His eyes are unblinking and he doesn't show any signs of acknowledgement towards Harry. 

"Louis, why-" he starts to ask, but gets interrupted by Louis saying something. 

"What was that?" Harry asks, when he doesn't hear what Louis says the first time. 

"I'm sorry," Louis whispers. 

"You don't ha-"

"I'm so sorry," Louis says a little more desperately. 

Harry tilts his head, confused as to why Louis is apologizing to  _him._ But then he realizes, he's not. He's not here. He's here physically, but he's not- mentally. And, Harry's not sure if where he's at is a very good place for him. 

"Louis, look at me." Harry coaxes softly, but it only causes Louis' eyes to widen and his head to start shaking frantically. 

"I didn't mean to." Louis almost sobs out. 

"I know-"

"Please don't be mad at me," he whimpers. 

Harry reaches a hesitant hand out to Louis, gently touching his arm in hopes of soothing him and bringing him back to reality. Bad idea. 

As soon as Harry touches him, Louis lets out a yell of fear, causing Harry to retract his hand quickly, and brings his hands up to shield his face, curling in on himself. He starts shaking even more than he was before and his breathing is becoming heavier by the second. " _Nonononopleaseno._ " Harry can hear him saying under his breath. 

"I'm not-"

" _Please!_ " Louis sobs desperately. "I promise- I promise I'll cover them up, I promise you won't have to look at them. I just- I didn't mean to. A-and, I know you don't like them, so I'll-" Louis cuts himself off choking on a sharp intake of breath. On instinct, Harry stretches out a hand to rub at Louis' back when he starts coughing and is startled when Louis suddenly jumps back and pushes himself as far away from Harry as possible. "Don't hurt me, please. Please,  _please,_ I'm so sorry." 

Harry knows that in this moment, he has to be careful with Louis. He has to be gentle with him and try to coax him out of whatever mentality he's in right now. Because, he knows that wherever Louis is right now..it's not a good place for him to be. 

"Louis," Harry whispers softly. "Come back to me, it's okay. You're okay." 

Harry's mum chooses this time to come out of her room for the second time that night. She stands in the doorway, looking down at the two boys sitting on the bathroom floor, with a concerned expression. "Is he-" she begins to say, but Harry holds up a finger, silencing her. He looks up with sad expression and shakes his head before turning his attention back to Louis. 

"It's me. It's Harry. I'm right here, you're okay. I'm not mad at you." Harry tries soothing him.

"I'm sorry," Louis whimpers once again.

"It's okay, Louis." 

Louis shakes his head and clenches his eyes shut, his eyebrows furrowing. His eyes slowly flutter open and take in his surroundings. Harry takes notice that his eyes are no longer glassy or unfocused. He's back. 

"Louis?" He tries. 

Louis' head snaps to the side at the sound of Harry's voice. His eyes are wide, his expression fearful. "Harry.." He breathes out. Harry nods, trying to keep his expression neutral. "Oh, god," Louis whimpers, his face crumpling. He drops his head into his hands and sucks in a sharp breath before letting out a heartbreaking sob. 

Harry doesn't know what to do. Usually in a situation like this, he would put his arm around Louis and try to comfort him - whisper to him and assure him that  _it's okay._ But..going by the way that Louis reacted earlier when Harry touched him, Harry's not so sure if he should try it again. 

"I hate-" Louis starts, choking on a sob. "I hate- I  _hate him!_ I- I hate him for making me act like this, I hate him for making me  _feel_ like this." 

Harry looks back up at the doorway and sees his mum still standing there with a concerned but pained expression on her face. She looks over at her son and raises her eyebrows and Harry nods. "We're okay." He says quietly. She purses her lips, contemplating whether she should leave or not, but sighs and nods at him, turning and making her way back to her bedroom. 

Harry turns his attention back to Louis. His sobbing has stopped and he's now sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms crossed over his knees and his chin resting on top of his arms. He's staring at the wall in front of him, his blinking eyes the only indication to Harry that he's still  _here_ mentally. 

"Louis," Harry tries again. 

A look to the side is the only acknowledgement Louis gives Harry. Harry doesn't need to ask him if he's okay, because he already knows that he's really  _not._ He's feeling uncomfortable because he doesn't know what Louis wants, he doesn't know what is going to set Louis off. He doesn't know if Louis even wants him to be here right now. He scoots over a little, to give Louis a bit of space, and Louis' head snaps to the side, his eyes wide and tear filled. 

"Don't leave," he barely whispers. "Please."

Harry furrows his brow and shakes his head. "I won't," he says softly. He scoots back over and reaches his hand out to maybe try and comfort Louis, but Louis pushes himself further away from Harry, almost pushing himself in between the toilet seat and the bathtub. Harry's pretty sure he'd be back there already if he could fit. 

The two boys sit in silence for several minutes before Harry's eyes start drooping. He then remembers that it's the middle of the night and him and Louis have been sitting on the bathroom floor for what seems like hours, but has probably only been one, maybe two. "Do you want to try going to bed?" He asks, trying not to seem impolite but..really, he's tired. 

Louis shakes his head quickly and, if Harry's not mistaken, his eyes start filling up with tears once again. 

"Why not?" He asks carefully. 

Louis hesitates before speaking, "I don't want to see him," he whimpers. 

And then Harry understands. He sighs and stands up, watching as Louis looks up at him with sad and tear filled eyes. Harry holds out his hand to the small boy curled up on the floor. Louis hesitates at first, just staring at Harry's hand, as if he's waiting for it to do something. Louis eventually slowly reaches his hand out and hesitantly puts it in Harry's, letting Harry help him up. Once Louis is on his feet, he pulls his arm back to his body and curls into himself, looking at his feet. 

Harry slowly walks out of the bathroom, glancing behind him every couple of seconds to make sure that Louis is following him. Louis is dragging his feet across the floor, his head downcast. 

When they make it to Harry's room, Harry closes the door behind them and gently coaxes Louis to sit on the bed. Louis sits down but still doesn't look Harry in the eye. Harry tilts his head to the side and purses his lips, thinking about what he can do to comfort Louis. Harry walks over and sits next to him on the bed, but this just causes Louis to scoot over and shake his head. 

Harry sighs but doesn't move from his spot, respecting Louis' personal space. "I don't know what happened," Harry says, looking over at him. "But, what I do know is that I am not going to let anything happen to you."

"You can't-" Louis starts to cry. 

"Hey," Harry interrupts. "He is not here, he cannot hurt you." He says firmly, but still trying to keep his voice soft. Louis slowly looks over to him with tear filled eyes, almost pleading, eyes. "It was just a dream." Harry soothes him. 

Louis sniffles and hesitates before nodding. 

"C'mon, let's go to bed." Harry suggests softly. 

Harry gets up and takes a pillow off of the bed. He goes to his closet and takes a couple of heavy blankets from the top shelf and tosses them to the floor next to the pillow. 

"What're you doing?" Harry hears a voice squeak from behind him. 

Harry spins around with raised eyebrows. "Oh...I'm sleeping on the floor." 

"You don't have to do that." Louis says quietly. 

"It's fine," Harry insists. "Honestly, I don't mind." He says when Louis starts to protest.

Louis just simply nods. He stands up and walks to the head of Harry's bed, pulling the covers back. He gets under them, and burrows his face into Harry's pillows, curling into himself. Harry looks at him sympathetically but doesn't say anything, just gets under the covers of his makeshift bed on the floor. And if he stays awake for most of the night to make sure Louis is okay, nobody has to know.

\---

Apparently Harry did end up falling asleep at some time during the night, because he wakes up awhile later still on the floor. He stretches his arms above his head and sits up to see Louis still in his bed, sound asleep. 

Harry smiles to himself and throws his blankets off of him, standing up and stretching one more time. He folds up the blankets and puts them back into his closet before leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him - wanting to give Louis as much sleep as he can get. He goes downstairs, straight into the kitchen to make himself a cup of morning tea. After filling up the kettle with water and placing it on the stove top, he looks out of the kitchen window to see the driveway empty. He turns to the microwave and sees that it's only seven a.m., his mum must have gone into work early this morning. He's not so sure about where Robin is though, he usually doesn't have work on Saturday's. Did Robin even come home last night? Harry will have to ask his mum about that when she gets home later tonight. 

He waits patiently for his water to come to a boil before he finishes preparing his tea. He wanders out to the living room and turns on the tv, flipping through the channels for a couple of minutes before finally settling on a rerun of Law and Order. He would normally go back up to his bedroom and watch Netflix on his laptop, but he really doesn't want to disrupt Louis' sleep. Louis had a rough night last night, he deserves all the sleep he can get. 

Harry thinks over what happened last night. He thinks about the fear and panic that surged through him at the sight of Louis sat on the bathroom floor. He thinks about what could have possibly happened to Louis if Harry hadn't woken up when he had. The thought of finding Louis lying lifeless and cold on the tile floor causes Harry to shudder. He doesn't know what he'd do if anything happened to Louis. Harry's already become so attached to the boy in such a short amount of time, it's insane. 

Today must be a marathon day for Law and Order, because four hours pass and Harry is still watching it. His attention is brought away from the television by the sound of someone coming down the stairs. Harry looks toward the staircase to see Louis walking down slowly with his head downcast, Harry's duvet wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

He looks exhausted. His eyes are swollen and bloodshot, and Harry's not sure if it's the aftermath of last night or if Louis woke up after Harry left this morning and broke down all over again.

Harry gives Louis a small smile when he glances up from the ground but Louis doesn't return it. He goes straight to the recliner and sits down, as far away from Harry as possible. He brings his feet up into the chair with him and curls into himself, almost like he's trying to make himself as small as possible, and cocoons himself in Harry's duvet. 

Harry doesn't say anything to him, not wanting to pressure him into talking about something he doesn't want to. He turns his attention back to the television and immerses himself in the world of law and criminal justice. 

It's only ten minutes later, when he hears it. It's faint, almost as if it slipped out by accident. Harry tears his attention away from the screen and looks over to see his duvet covering the entirety of Louis' body, even his head. But Harry still doesn't miss the way that the duvet trembles every couple of seconds. 

Harry sighs sadly and quietly gets up from the couch. He walks over to the recliner and crouches down. 

"Hey," he coos. 

The trembling suddenly stops and several seconds pass before the duvet is being pulled down and two bloodshot, but blue, tear filled eyes are peeking out. 

"Do you mind if I join you?" 

Louis' eyes suddenly widen and fill with fear. He clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head frantically. 

"Hey, hey." Harry tries to soothe him. "Louis. Louis, look at me." He orders softly. 

Louis' eyes slowly open and he looks at Harry with a wary expression. 

"It's okay," Harry says. "I am not going to hurt you." He says it so softly, almost like he would speak to a frightened animal. That's really what Louis reminds him of in this moment. 

It takes a while, but soon enough Louis is pulling back the duvet, making room for Harry to snuggle up to him. 

Harry quickly jumps up before Louis can change his mind. It's a tight squeeze, but Harry makes it work by curling his whole body around Louis'. He wraps his arms around Louis' middle and tucks his face into the back of his neck. 

Louis doesn't react at first, just stays tense in Harry's hold. But, after a couple of minutes, he finally let's go. He brings his arms in to cling onto Harry's and backs up into him as far as he can. Harry gets the hint and tightens his arms around Louis body. He immediately feels Louis relax in his hold and hears him let out a sigh.  

Harry sits and listens to Louis breathing. He finds comfort in the feeling of Louis' heart beating through his back against Harry's chest, the feeling of Louis resting all of his weight back onto Harry, the feeling of Louis' nails digging into Harry's forearms from where he's gripping onto him so tightly. 

Louis is quiet for so long that Harry waits for his breathing to even out, but it never does. 

"He came into my house," Louis whispers suddenly. It's so quiet that Harry doesn't think he would've been able to hear it if it weren't for their close proximity. Harry is confused, but he doesn't interrupt Louis. "He just- he let himself in. My mum or my sister weren't home, I guess, because he came into my room and he- he attacked me." Louis' voice shakes on the last three words. "I di- I didn't know what to do, I couldn't defend myself. I couldn't move. He was-  he started-" Louis cuts himself off with a small sob. "He started taking my clothes off and started touching me and I didn't want it, I didn't want it at all, but I  _couldn't move._ " Louis sobs out frantically. "And then he- he finished. And I woke up. I woke up and I was so scared, I didn't know what to do. I could- I could still feel his hands touching me, it felt  _so real._ " Louis takes in a shaky breath before continuing. "I got up and locked myself in the bathroom because I didn't think he would be able to find me if I did. I don't remember what happened after that." Louis releases his grip from Harry's arms and stretches out his arms in front of him. "But I guess I don't need to," he says, looking at the bandages on his arms. 

Realization dawns on Harry, why Louis would freak out whenever Harry would touch him. Why he was trying to stay as far away from Harry as possible. Louis felt  _his_ hands instead of Harry's, he saw  _his_ face where Harry's was supposed to be. Harry thought he understood last night, but now he realizes that  _no,_ he really didn't. 

Harry tightens his hold around Louis even more, as much as he can without crushing Louis' ribs. He puts his nose in Louis' hair and breathes him in. And Harry knows that he's probably said this a thousand times, and he'll say it a thousand more times until Louis understands: "I will  _not_ let him hurt you, Louis."

"You can't make that promise," Louis croaks out.

"But I can try my hardest to. I will do whatever it takes to protect you," Harry says fiercely. 

Louis doesn't question him, just relaxes back in Harry's hold again. Soon enough, Harry hears his breath even out. He continues watching reruns of Law and Order for the next couple of hours while Louis sleeps soundly in his arms. 

\---


End file.
